The Dark Side of A Sunny Street
- Kathleen Hoy Foley
- 1d
- 3 min read
by Kathleen Hoy Foley
I grew up on the dark side of a sunny street
where chain link fences still stand
bearing witness to the days
when Father Greco did not know best
and My Three Sons were three too many.
Where the intellect and artistry of girls and women
were baked into apple pies,
steam-ironed into boxer shorts,
and sewn into hems, hundreds of them.
Be reminded,
if a Catholic woman
dared attack that pile of mending on a Sunday
her soul was in danger.
Performing servile work
on the day
dedicated to The Lord
could cast a woman into the arms of Beelzebub.
But that wasn’t the worst thing that could happen
to a Catholic wife
living on the dark side of a sunny street.
The worst
was an unwanted pregnancy.
And every pregnancy on the dark side of the street
was an unwanted pregnancy.
A missed period would swell the silence
with viscous grief,
a throbbing wound
that soiled the air with stink.
Not again. Please not again—
the only prayer whispered
on calloused, bended knees.
Do not be mistaken,
these were not devout women.
These were terrified women.
Taunted with low-slung threats of mortal sin
and excommunication from their Father church.
Under-educated women
easily intimidated.
Sturdy Caucasian breeders
impounded
in split levels and non-descript bungalows
with no path to higher learning
or access to elevated thinking—
a woman kept dumb
is a woman easily controlled.
They were not evil women.
Just women who didn’t want a bunch of kids.
Or another kid.
Or even any kids.
Women who punished themselves
for harboring such sinful thoughts.
Not so strange for a woman’s body to revolt
and fall into deep disrepair
that required surgical intervention—
an unspoken, tacit pact with a sympathetic doctor
and a “necessary” hysterectomy.
No disrespect to Jesus involved.
Sometimes a woman’s mind shattered,
leaving her isolated behind that chain link fence
on the dark side of a sunny street—
a spectacle who couldn’t
force herself out of bed
but did anyway
and battered her children for the effort.
A sucker slap
honed by a storm of fury
would knock a child senseless
and send her staggering backward
in pain and confusion.
I’ve never escaped
the dark side of a sunny street.
Or the women entombed there.
Women held hostage by their own wrath and despair
and the permanent scars
they inflicted
on little bodies and tender hearts.
Many decades gone
and I still see those chain link fences.
I am haunted by the wheeze of the beneath women
breathing in
the poison oxygen of their betters
as their own spirits disappeared
in the humiliation of being a “the”—
stigma loud as a scarlet letter.
Used women
floundering between pretense and obedience.
Flat ghosts in their own homes,
their own communities.
Never offered the dignity of being an “I”.
Voiceless women.
Silenced women.
Tamed women.
A defeated woman
unable to heal to the damage
she imposed
on her children,
traumatized
and left to drown
in the echoes from
the dark side of the street.
***
Through my writings, I bear witness to the unallowed truths of abuse trauma – my own and others. Exposing the invisible, elemental secrets of trauma allows for the possibility of seeing and understanding for both individuals and our culture. I have authored a trilogy of books about the legacy of sexual abuse trauma. To obtain a free PDF version, just log on to https://mediumsinart.weebly.com/free-pdf-books.html and click on the tab for the book you wish to see. If a paper copy is desired, just fill out the contact form on the site, and we will happily mail a copy.
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