Kitchen Table Gods

Kitchen Table Gods

            after Sacrifice by Mike Krasowitz

I pull a fifty dollar bill

from a donation envelope 
out falls two small wooden girls

in ceremonial offering.

If you are nice to him you will get $50.

She meant only talking

not what the others endured

But Mother, you said

you hated him and I believed you—

even before I knew the awful truth

of the man you called your father—

what he’d done to all of you.

I took you at your word that he’d

been simply cruel, like you.

My other grandfather

gave pennies to fill a cider jar,

Indian heads for my collection
walked with his dalmation

played cards and checkers--

never once did I fear him.

I didn’t like the way

that crisp new $50 dollar bill felt.

Fifty dirty, wrinkled singles I earned

babysitting were cleaner, came

without secrets or shame.  You said

money had power, but I learned

that this is another lie--

its a tool that can become a weapon
people like you and him
learn to load and shoot.