Trust Betrayed

A mother watches;

A girl plays in the sand,
squatting, laboring in silence
at the water’s edge. Under her feet
water wobbles, small stones
and pebbles click in the receding wash.
The spilt milk of the surf
foams around her ankles
and not
being responsible
slowly undermines the foundation
of her castle, a thing of beauty
and childhood imagination, adorned
with sea things,
broken shells, crab legs, kelp,
bits of scoured glass.

Overhead gulls scream abuse.

A wave slaps the girl in the face
of her innocence.
She gags and coughs the sea spit
from her lungs, but another wave
knocks her down and
she is tumbled in the water,
her nine year old breasts
scrape on the course sand,
the thick morning stubble of a man’s face.
The suck and pull of the undertow
tugs at her body
and strands of seaweed
entwine in her hair.

And a mother
does nothing. ©

-Kelly King