My Daughter My Stranger
There was a time not long ago
(only a year in fact)
when she hated everyone else's
poison wafting her way. She used
to say cigarettes are dangerous.
Even tried to persuade her friends.
We always had a good understanding
me and my daughter. She has a
talent for the flute
and this summer I bought her
a piccolo. Her favourite record
was Cimerosa's double-flute
concerto. Her needle-adept fingers
sewed embroideries far finer than
my young fingers ever did.
This year she's a senior.
She's embroidered a joint
its smoke spiralling up the
leg of her faded jeans. Our
house rocks with Alice Cooper's
ghastly lyrics. Every evening now
she's out back in the park
behind our house ... here in this
middle-class hamlet. A crowd of
boys and girls. Music blares the
autumn air. Matches flare the dark
to light the weeds. She's high.
(She gets high on crowds
... and popularity.)
'Everyone thinks I'm a stoner'
she tells me laughing. 'It's
my clothes, my fuzzy hair
... and the way I talk.'
My daughter has learned.
She knows how to disarm my
wary thoughts. Now
my neighbour with the sniffing nose
tells her neighbours that my daughter
is a bad influence on theirs. I
remember her own daughter. Her way
was tight-lipped with the girl
.... and high-voiced.
She always said the reason the girl
ran wild was because the girl
was adopted. Never can trust strange genes.
c. 1978 Rita Rosenfeld
published in contemporary verse two, Summer 1978
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