dreaming of mother

it did not happen that way  
or I would have remembered it so  
you were always so fond of the lie  
   
which put toe into truth, cold truth,  
and fashioned straw snowmen  
which didn't exist  
   
can you not rip that memory  
from that cardboard covered thing  
you recorded all those shall we say  
   
delusions?  No one wished to kill  
you as you slept so why the mawkish dummies that you made  
   
of clothing beneath the spread--they  
would have fooled no one  
as you sought trembling sleep  
   
beneath the bed or crouched in  
fetal ball atop a pile of whatever  
it was to keep the ogres out  
   
your own stepfather who must  
have loved you despite your rapist  
birth--he gave you his name!  
   
Legitimized your mother's shame!  
and you repaid by dead-naming it  
back? What kind of child would do    
   
such a thing? And just see what you've become--reform school, mental hospitals, prison and worse  
   
and the notes you hid behind the  
mirror on your bedroom door in-  
forming the police who (dare i say it)  
   
murdered you? You are 80 years old  
and homeless. I visited you in some of those places and was ashamed    
   
but said nothing for you were  
wild by then and we all feared your  
rages. Now I know I was too kind,  
   
spared the rod and spoiled the child but not for lack of trying. No one  
could have healed you son  
   
But we did shut down your crying. Will you not thank us for that? We loved you as much as we could  
 
considering who and what you were. (A rapist's child who brought us grief!) We tried to rip your demons out!
   
But you were a bad one  
from the start. And, BTW, your so-called poetry is shit, not art.