Weakling by Mel Goldberg

Illustration by Sue Babcock
They threw a blanket
over my face
thinking I was a weakling.
They took me to a cave
and put stones
in my mouth.
I did not tell them
I was not from here.
They called me a
white-belly,
they called me a
coward dog
I did not know
how to tell them
I could kill them with my mind.
When they fell unconscious
I put a thought in their heads:
I was from a place
so far away
they did not know its name.
Mel Goldberg earned an MA in English and taught literature and writing in California, Illinois, Arizona and, as a Fulbright Exchange Teacher, at Stanground College in Cambridgeshire, England. He’s traveled in a small motor home for seven years throughout the US, Canada, and Mexico. And now lives in the village of Ajijic in Jalisco, Mexico. His poetry has appeared in magazines in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Mexico. He has self-published a book of poetry, If We Survive (2011), and a book of Haiku in Spanish and English, Algunas Bayas Agitado del Arbol/A Few Berries Shaken From the Tree (2012). His two novels are available on Amazon Kindle.