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My mother never forgave my father for killing himself, especially at such an awkward time and in a public park, that spring when I was waiting to be born. She locked his name in her deepest cabinet and would not let him out, though I could hear him thumping. When I came down from the attic with the pastel portrait in my hand of a long-lipped stranger with a brave moustache and deep brown level eyes, she ripped it into shreds without a single word and slapped me hard. In my sixty-fourth year I can feel my cheek still burning.
You can find this beautiful poem in Stanley Kunitz’s — The Collected Poems
The Portrait
Powerful are the wounds we recieve.
Powerful are the wounds we inflict.
Powerful are the words we grieve,
with
Heartbreaking