Joel yelled, “I had a ghastly childhood,”
but Mona said nothing.
“I accept the apparent of oblivion,
the neglect and the eruption of loneliness
in a wretched early life.”
Mona said nothing.

“My most elementary demands
for some affection
always faced empty eyes,
a billion years of feeble deception.”
And Mona said nothing.

Joel leaped in the dark his voice trailing a gasp
and Mona was alone.
With or without Liam,
Mona always alone.

A tortured past her only companion
bouncing from one nightmare to the other,
ricochet of directed dim,
a dance of matters dark
and a sneeze of a childhood
Joel echo but never lived.

Mona said nothing.