• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary navigation
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Painted Bride Quarterly

  • About
    • About PBQ
    • People
  • Issues
    • Current Issue
    • Past Issues
    • Print Annuals
  • Podcast
    • Latest Podcast
    • All Podcasts
  • News & Events
  • Submit
  • Shop
  • Fiction
  • Poetry
  • Prose
  • Contributors
  • Current Issue

Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno: The Pool

October 24, 2016 by PBQ

My fifteen-year old son, 
adopted from Chile, 
pedals his bike back from the pool, 
says some boys just called him a Spic, 
and my brain explodes— 
Ping, ping, says my brain. 
Wait! says Louey. 
I get in the car, 
gun the gas pedal, 
stomp past two 
teenage lifeguards at the gate, 
on my way to the deep end. 
 
Did you call my son a Name? 
I call across the water 
to two skinny white boys 
no older than twelve, 
their goose-pimpled arms 
hugging their concave chests. 
 
They nod. Any minute they 
might cry and their 
their mothers might come over. 
Listen, you! Words hurt! 
I am yelling, 
Don’t ever say that word again, do you 
understand? Or I'll come back here 
and beat the shit out of you, do you understand? 
Open-mouthed, they nod. 
Maybe I didn't make that threat aloud. 
But we all heard it. 
 
At home, Louey says he was holding their 
heads underwater 
for fun, 
which is why they got mad 
in the first place.

Filed Under: Contributors 94, Issue 94, Poetry, Poetry 94 Tagged With: Contributors 94, Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno, Poetry, Poetry 94

Primary Sidebar

Recent News & Events

PBQ @ the Pen & Pencil!

PBQ Slam Session!

Slam Session with PBQ!

PBQ @ Poetry Tent!

PBQ @ AWP!

© 2020 Painted Bride Quarterly. Contact PBQ: info@pbqmag.org