Sole-Parent Childhood

She has vague, unpleasant memories
of the father last known a decade earlier.
Far more recollections and fondness
through swiftly fading, of one lived with
for seven years, whom she called Daddy.
Neither now a part of her young life.

Nearing fourteen, she deliberately
wipes her mind clear of a father
with no interest in his child. No
support, no curiosity, no existence.
She struggles to square her life
with that of classmates replete with

full household; parents, siblings -
but the peculiar pangs of curiosity
turn too quickly to a yearning she
does not understand and which,
dwelt upon, are strangely painful.

Why belabour reality? Even at her
age she recognizes the futility of it.
Listens to her mother's complaints
of male perfidy, selfishness and
stupidity, and turns away, unaware
of how disconsolate she in fact, is.

Her peers divide their lives between
their parents' separate homes. She
is indivisibly in her mother's sole orbit.
Her grandparents representing an
oddly archaic social structure serving
to comfort and yet bemuse her.