The Visit; Post 1991

Didn't go as well I had hoped or expected.
I saw a picture of my sister and the father of this child
and noticed it was a prom picture from several years ago:

"Is this Chris? You went to a prom with him?
How? Explain--"

The entire story trailed through four men
and three children
[I feel horrible--not cathartic--at the moment],
and worse yet, exposed the naked violence of my family.

Yes, violence.

It all began when my 4'8" grandmother
with the flaming red hair
bit the tip off from a neighbor's finger
who was stupid enough to point it in my grandmother's face.

She also shot a lover, in the fog, on a bridge.
As a child, I stumbled across the newspaper clipping
tucked away in an old Bible.

That (when I found the clipping)
must have been sometime after my father
wrestled her to the ground,
breaking 2 of her ribs,
as she pulled a shiney black pistol on us
from a fake fruit bowl on her kitchen table.

She had a habit of biting her wrist when she was angry.
The list goes on.

Yet, because of Irish stereotypes that flatten women
into predictable balls of rage,
young girls born with red hair in my family are, well,
feared.
Every tantrum is magnified into a magnificient story
of ferocious glory:
the most recent?
My neice takes a pair of siccors (blunt, thankfully)
to a preschool teacher's arm
as the teacher tries to correct my neice's cutting.
She had lobed off a paper giraffe's ear accidentally.

My point is that red hair signifies(ed) an expectation
of violence and defiance of women
in my family born with red hair. Is this making any sense?

Sigh.

Only, instead of seeking professional therapy,
or any other type of outlet I supose,
my family remains caught up in this false pride,
a false sense of lost glory days (before the INCIDENT 1991).