At night, an infant, I’d crawl downstairs to perform
casual acts of vandalism, the radio, phonograph, and
TV particular targets of my ire. To retaliate, my father,
at bedtime, affixed chicken wire atop my crib.

Those were innocent if benighted times. Pregnant
mothers smoked, car seats weren’t invented yet,
no one childproofed their home.

When five years old, caught between gangs of
rock-throwing boys, my head got split open. My
parents rushed me, bleeding and screaming,
to the emergency room. Decades later, I still bear
a crescent-moon scar like an incipient third eye.

Today, on TV, again terrible news. Another deadly
stabbing, child abduction, home invasion. I turn
off the TV and sit in darkness while a drone (child’s
toy? government spy?) hovers outside my window.

The world is never safe. In the bathroom mirror,
I touch my scar, willing that eye to open.