Avoid becoming an object
especially the direct one.
In the mother hit the child
it’s safer to be the subject.
If hit were a noun it might be
a good thing, a top-ten tune
home run swing, but here it’s
a verb that leads to others—
redden, hide, cry, don’t
touch. Then the adverbs
arrive gingerly, awkwardly
and a pack of adjectives
ready to modify the child:
bruised, ashamed, horrified.

If only you could’ve been
a coordinating conjunction,
the and between Mom and
some other noun, preferably
Dad, but no, it’s a subordinate
role—all ifs, whens, thoughs—
until your fleeing at eighteen
tugs the independent clause
down a rung, leaves the mother
a fragment, unable to lead the
simple, compound, complex
around. A hand sweeps her,
prepositionally, off of, away
from, beyond your pages.