Imagine: you’re at a store with your mother. You both see another mother start to spank her child. Your mother intervenes, and stops this mother from doing that. How would you feel?

     The Bravest Deed

     I’m shopping with Mom

     at the supermarket

     and we see a woman

     yelling at her kid

     who looks about three or four.

     She grabs the girl’s arm

     smacks her on the bottom

     BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!  

     about ten times, hard, then

     CRACK! across the girl’s face.

     The girl is screaming

     and the lady gets ready

     to smack her again

     but all of a sudden Mom

     sort of steps between them

     and asks: Is everything okay?

     You’re having a hard time,

     looks like. I remember…

     Mom points at me, laughing,

     actually calms the lady down,

     with that girl still sniffling,

     and me standing there hoping

     no one will notice my

     trembling hands.

     from Relatively Speaking: Poems About Family