Cleaning Out the Garage

Hidden behind
two different sized levels,
I saw it.

And the ache of my bones
reared up —
electric,
sharp edged--
I shrank 
in the ugly face
of its brutality.

Yes, I admit—
I shrank down
50 years or so
more or less—
a thirteen-year-old,
helpless, 
swimming in a stuttering stupor,
nose barely above water,
in the wake of this awakened
ache in my bones--
the sight of a metal yardstick
like the one my drunken mother
tried to break over my back 
as she had her wooden one.

And I, 
after all these years,
I still carry that ache, 
hidden, 
in the marrow
of my bones