thrashings so savage

my father’s beatings

so prolonged and brutal

were notwithstanding

my cries so futile.

besides his teaching me

justifiably to be

apprehensive

and too, too fearful,

he left me now, post-65

and glad to be alive,

from them in the main

yet in physical pain.

but what makes this all

so goddamned sinister

is that my father

was the local minister.