There is a Pain so Utter

It swallows Being up,

Then covers the abyss with trance

So memory can step

Around, across, upon it

As one within a swoon

Goes steady, when an open eye

Would drop him bone by bone.

Emily Dickinson

            In our culture, there is consensus on children’s blood, when it runs.  We scurry to bury it.  There is laughter when Homer chokes Bart, but there is no blood.  The woodshed is an icon in the history of American discipline.  Always good for a laugh. 

Simpson pulls back at the edge of the void.  The secret goes unspoken.  The act that rips the heart’s blood from the chest of a child is suppressed because the truth must never be revealed, lest it find us all gaping, naked, a bitter north wind kicking up, unable to lift our heads, wishing for and dreading the same thing.

Why you little....  Says Simpson, and stops.