Brooklyn. Red Shoes

My sister took this photo
in Brooklyn behind the apartment house
on East 18th Street. The stairs, heavy iron
painted red. Shoes red. I am displaced
without solace or comfort and the toll
is being taken. I have become the family
scapegoat and am going down with
an implosion that is rocking the complacency
of don't tell, don't speak, children to be seen
not heard.
I hoard food at this point.
I regress to infant-like behavior
with baby food and bottle.
The words *she is being emotionally traumatized*
first uttered by those around me.
I am taken to my first psychiatrist around this time.
Age 8
The psychiatrist conveys to my mother that a dog would
be therapeutic after so many losses.
Mother takes me to animal shelter where Corky
my Border collie is obtained.
Later he would be run over while my mother
takes him for a rare walk.
Injured, he would limp with a lame leg
for the rest of his life.
It was hard to trust anything or anyone
after that.