Poem Therapy at 6:55 A.M. - January Gill O'Neil

Early Memory
January Gill O'Neil

I remember picking up a fistful
of sand, smooth crystals, like hourglass sand
and throwing it into the eyes of a boy. Johnny
or Danny or Kevin—he was not important.
I was five and I knew he would cry.

I remember everything about it—
the sandbox in the corner of the room
at Cinderella Day Care; Ms. Lee,
who ran over after the boy wailed for his mother,
her stern look as the words No snack formed on her lips.
My hands with their gritty, half-mooned fingernails
I hid in the pockets of my blue and white dress.
How she found them and uncurled small sandy fists.

There must have been such rage in me, to give such pain
to another person. This afternoon,
I saw a man pull a gold chain off the neck
of a woman as she crossed the street.
She cried out with a sound that bleached me.
I walked on, unable to help,
knowing that fire in childhood
clenched deep in my pockets all the way home.

I've had Ellie, a blue healer/border collie mix for over sixteen years. We got her from the pound when my daughter begged and I relented. She's been a good dog: good natured, active, playful, (although a deeply committed digger and uprooter of flower beds). Until recently. Enter Harley, a shorky - half shitzu, half Yorkie. Ellie now snarls, bites, pees on the dining room hardwood, and most surprising, she exhibits premeditated cruelty. She teases the puppy, sometimes viciously. Harley thinks Ellie is playing with him. I know Ellie well enough to know it's not a game.

Perhaps it's a Darwinian reaction in which she senses it is possible to be replaced in the social hierarchical food chain. Or, could it be possible that cruelty is encoded in our DNA? Science is beginning to show that our brains are hardwired emotionally, that we are predispositioned to certain emotions.

The speaker in the poem feels guilt as a reflective adult, and wonders at the rage she must have felt. The girl in the sand pile probably just wanted to see what happened when she threw the sand, wanted to feel the power of provoking pain. Power over is always a tenuous position, provoking pain to feel powerful is the refuge of cowards and the weak. Unless there's a method, it's merely madness. Shakespeare or Machiavelli would tell you this.