is a little glass globe.

Inside is a blue river

and green trees in the center,

a whole world, so peaceful,

a storybook inside glass.

If I could, I would sleep

next to the trunk of the tree

closest to the rock,

where words are etched

in delicate precision:

“I will pour water on the thirsty land,

and streams on the dry ground.”

The rabbi tells me that his grandson

brought the globe back from Israel.

He lets me hold it.

He gives me saltwater taffy.

He’s calm,

and everything he says

sounds like a story

I might be a part of.

I make promises to practice,

and he writes down some dates

for when to come back,

all the way through the summer.

It’s a good meeting. A start at least.

It won’t be the worst thing

to come here.

Grown-Up Talk

In my room, I watch

The Greatest American Hero.

It’s an old show

I watch with my dad about these aliens who

give a suit to some guy

and it makes him a superhero.

I think about what I would do

if I had the suit.

How I would fight for good.

How I would streak across the sky.

How I might look in that skintight suit.

I would have to get in shape and exercise,

or maybe the suit would change me

just by my putting it on.

I hear my parents

talking in a low hum

in the dining room,

a gentle

stream of words

flowing through the house.

It’s comfort,

the uncomplicated vibration

of grown-up talk,

the sound, not the words.

But then, in the middle of the second commercial,

I hear a crashing sound,

the dining room table, the pewter cup,

the dinner dishes falling.

The bass of my father’s yell vibrates

through the wall.

I hear the shriek

of my mother’s angriest voice.

I hear

crashing,

bumps,

door slams.

I hide in my room and wait.

The Greatest American Hero

slides under a car

to stop it from crashing

into a school bus.

My parents yell,

but it’s when I hear crying

that I try to be brave.

I open my door,

sneak down the very short hallway

until the sound burns like fire.

My father sits on top of my mother,

holds her head down,

screaming, Fatso, you’re killing me!

She screams back

every word

I have been told

not to say.

Other words too,

about traveling,

about lying again,

another woman’s name,

about businesses. About money.

Words in spit and terrible angles.

His body hangs over her,

his weight over hers, trying to maneuver

their awkward, swollen adult bodies.

I want to rush in and knock him over.

I want her to stop screaming.

I’ve heard yelling before,

always shouting at each other

as if this pitch and fury

is just a part of who they are,

but I’ve never seen them like this before.