"Sit in my hand."

I'm ten.

I can't see him,

but I hear him breathing

in the dark.

It's after dinner playtime.

We're outside,

hidden by trees and shrubbery.

He calls it hide-and-seek,

but only my little sister seeks us

as we hide

and she can't find us,

as grandfather picks me up

and rubs his hands between my legs.

I only feel a vague stirring

at the edge of my consciousness.

I don't know what it is, 

but I like it.

It gives me pleasure

that I can't identify.

It's not like eating candy,

but it's just as bad,

because I had to lie to grandmother

when she asked,

"What do you do out there?"

"Where?" I answered.

Then I said, "Oh, play hide-and-seek."

She looked hard at me,

then she said, "That was the last time.

I'm stopping that game."

So it ended and I forgot.

Ten years passed, thirtyfive,

when I began to reconstruct the past.

When I asked myself

why I was attracted to men who disgusted me

I traveled back through time

to the dark and heavy breathing part of my life

I thought was gone,

but it had only sunk from view

into the quicksand of my mind.

It was pulling me down

and there I found grandfather waiting,

his hand outstretched to lift me up,

naked and wet

where he rubbed me.

"I'll do anything for you," he whispered,

"but let you go."

And I cried, "Yes," then "No."

"I don't understand how you can do this to me.

I'm only ten years old,"

and he said, "That's old enough to know."