Family Secrets

I'm the boy they found down in the well
After going missing all those days.
Three days, I guess. I still don't understand it.
All the fuss and bother, everybody
Buzzing round my sister so, and she
Always the good one. I mean, she found me, sure,
But who's the one that told me go and play
Out in that goddamned field in the first place?
In all their foolish questions no one ever
Asked me that. It's always, "Were you scared?"
And, "Don't it make you glad to be alive?"
Well how the hell should I know? Barely five!
And what's some snotty little brat to know
Who's glad or not to be alive? I'll tell you
Now, though; forty-eight years old and now
I'll tell you: No. It's nothing makes you glad
To be alive. Alive's alive. That's all.
She died of cancer seven years ago.
I still don't know for sure was she the one
Sent Mama with the paddle after me
That once behind the shed. But I know this:
It was her cigarettes I was smoking.