First Light

by Howard Good

Running I tripped on the uneven pavement broke my two front teeth it wasn’t my fault I was crying and bleeding when my father got home from the factory and saw my ruined mouth he walloped me across the face whaddaya stupid he said my mother couldn’t hit hard arthritis so she beat me with a hairbrush for wasting paper which is what she called my drawing I don’t think about it often or the birds in the window box with black skullcaps like observant Jews their cheeping would wake me as if first light had become suddenly audible until my mother noticed them there and told my father who cursing opened my bedroom window that Sunday and reached out a dark and sparkling hand and destroyed as I watched in pale silence the circle of their nest.