I was five, taken into Arkansas woods,
where an old couple lived.
They were distant relatives.
They have no names, just images.
I don’t even remember the husband
or the other men who dragged her out screaming.
I was transfixed, flung into a nightmare.
She was naked, squirming, screaming:
“Don’t take me! Don’t take me there!”
Later I remember asking—Take her where?
To the hospital, no ambulances would
go that deep in the woods.
She had cancer but refused to go.
Act of mercy, her husband finally said okay.
Like a barn razing they came,
four of them grabbed her,
carried to the old black car,
screaming and screaming.
I‘d never seen a naked woman,
never used an outhouse
where I hid before I threw up
and swore I would never die.
For a long time, it was like a dream,
but Aunt Sallie gossiped
and my adult mind remembered
like finding out the monster
under the bed was real.
Originally published in Synchronized Chaos