How It Is Between Us

Buttons, coins, paper clips
I slipped into my mouth; although
 
my parents warned of choking and germs,
I couldn’t stop tasting the world.
 
I must have been three or four
when I sucked a butterfly ring,
 
bright plastic from a Winn Dixie
quarter machine, into my throat.
 
It lodged firm, like a bad idea.
Mom was resting in her room,
 
recovering from surgery
to remove her gall bladder, the scar
 
a red gash across her belly.
Heaving, trying to cough, I tried
 
her locked knob, pounded the door
until she opened it and found 
 
me clawing at my neck. I wonder
what color I’d turned by then. Scarlet? 
 
Purple? How quickly she rejected
the Heimlich, which would tear her open;
 
instead, she jabbed a long finger
down my throat. I gagged, pulled
 
away, but she seized my arm,
stabbing with her long nail,
 
hooking and skewering until
she poked the ring further down
 
and I was able to swallow it.
We stood, or maybe fell, panting
 
in that hallway, angry and grateful,
both of us too hurt to speak.