The Fourth Child by Eileen Patterson

I was 4th out of his bag of tricks, born with an arctic
sorrow that made every step I took guarded like a cats as if
I was frozen in ice trying to break free.

At the age of 5 I brood cautiously into the camera
asking with dark grieving eyes,

“What is it you want of me?”

“ I want you to love me,” Daddy will say.

And I did, all those years after he left us,
I loved him like a dangerous secret.

Eileen Patterson was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She now resides in Cudahy, Wisconsin and belongs to The Southshore Poets.  Along with her fellow poets she has read her poetry at the Cudahy Library several times. She is moved by the poetry of Anne Sexton, Marge Piercy, Sharon Olds and many more poets.