The old woman across the way
                             is whipping the boy again
                        and shouting to the neighborhood
                             her goodness and his wrongs.

                        Wildly he crashes through elephant ears,
                             pleads in dusty zinnias,
                        while she in spite of crippling fat
                             pursues and corners him.

                        She strikes and strikes the shrilly circling
                             boy till the stick breaks
                        in her hand.  His tears are rainy weather
                             to woundlike memories:

                        My head gripped in bony vise
                             of knees, the writhing struggle
                        to wrench free, the blows, the fear
                             worse than blows that hateful

                        Words could bring, the face that I
                             no longer knew or loved . . .
                        Well, it is over now, it is over,
                             and the boy sobs in his room,

                        And the woman leans muttering against
                             a tree, exhausted, purged--
                        avenged in part for lifelong hidings
                             she has had to bear.