pipes

my sister says he always promised the first one asleep a quarter i don't remember getting any quarters but now whenever i think a hug is expected the air goes thick and my body doesn't want it after what uncle sid did the pipes in his sooty house shuddered and groaned whenever we turned on a tap after what uncle sid did to me under the covers in the back bedroom in his sooty house
across from kellog's
and i don't remember any quarters

in the quiet room in the small quiet room where he made me
touch
touch him
in the quiet room under the covers
when he took my cool hand and made me hold his
his    thing
there was no sound
but his fat red breath
no sound
i could make
i couldn't say
in the small quiet room when uncle sid did that i
couldn't say   don't

years later at my cousin's wedding
my three sisters and i in the ladies room
sitting with our long dresses hitched up
in separate pink cubicles
looking at the things you look at in those places
your feet    the floor tiles
we told
and then we laughed
inventing words for what he did to us
because there were none that we knew
we came out   fixed our hair   our faces
we didn't speak of it again for twenty years
mostly i remember
the shuddering pipes in that house
and sometimes think our sadness
seeped into the plumbing
with every drink of water
every washing of our hands
where do the pipes of torn-down houses go
and what becomes of the shuddering

outside my window i hear light traffic
and a bird swallowing air
jewelled gulps of sound
falling down its throat