Reiter’s Block contributor Donal Mahoney returns with this understated, stark poem about the impact of child abuse, and how sinfully easy it is for the responsible adults to look the other way.

By Mistake He Later Said

Every once in awhile
over the last 40 years
Ralph wondered what might

have happened to the guy
who had moved in with the mother
of his children and drank all the time.

He remembered the kids saying
when they were small
the fellow got up one night

to go to the bathroom
and got lost in the hallway
went back to the wrong room

and got in the wrong bed
with Ralph’s daughter,
by mistake he later said.

Forty years later
in a technicolor nightmare
Ralph saw the guy’s name

blink on a neon billboard
and Ralph Googled him to find
the fellow had won the lottery

and moved to Arizona,
got cancer and died.
None of the children,

adults with families
of their own now, knew
what had happened to him

except for the daughter who
wakes up and Googles him
in the still of the night.