His mother’s hands push with force yet yielding with affection,
wanting her youngest son to go to the temple school.
He gently tugs at her sarong begging his mother on his knees
“I want to work,” he pleas.
Wanting to ease the needle-stabbing aches on her back and feet
standing all day selling ,“Kanom Kai Hong”( fried sugar donut balls) all day at the open market
Yet everyday his mother would tell him, “Go to school!”
Buts his little hands were strangers to the pens and pencils
He holds without the confidence to write his own name.
He pauses, afraid of being tease.
“You grew up to be a water buffalo!”his classmates taunted
He left the 4th grade, never to return.
But later in life, he learns
to hold a ranch, screw driver, and shovel
better than a pen.
10 years later, he grips tight to a steel wire hanger
Smacking down without yielding onto the flesh skin
Of his 7 years old, youngest daughter.
3 times the steel wire lashed, cut deep
scars, embedded in her repressed memories.
As he clutched the hanger coming down in midair
sudden reflections of childhood memories
a little boy in the temple school
dawn upon his youngest daughter.
“ She does not know how to read and write!”
He blames himself ,yet
he does not know how to teach her.
His hands surrenders to guilt.
One by one, each fingers
releases the hanger falling down onto the ground
He promise never to hit his daughter
Never again.
When his daughter turns 23 years old
ready to graduate from college
He told her this story
She sat silently trying to remember
All she can do is write down,
“You never said sorry,but I forgive you dad.”
