Yellow Mama E zine

Uncle Jake

​

by Sophia Wiseman-Rose

 

           The little girl next door is being abused.

           She doesn’t know it.

           A thirty-three-year-old friend of your parents
           cannot be your “boyfriend”
           when you are six.

           He never has to threaten her.

           Her parents are oblivious.

           They smile and say,
           “She’s so attached to Uncle Jake,”
           and leave them alone together.

           One day she will remember.

           She will blame her parents.
           She will despise herself.
           Perhaps she will hate Uncle Jake.

           But the person she should hate
           is me.

           Because I know.

           And I do nothing.

           No one would believe me.

           That is what I tell myself,
           anyway.

 

           Sophia Wiseman-Rose is a Paramedic and an Anglican nun in the UK. These two vocations have shown her some of the best and the worst of humanity. Sophia is an avid painter and illustrator who is obsessed with poetry, both reading and writing it. She finds poetry cathartic, the best means of self- expression and the best way of making sense of what goes on inside of our heads.

​

         Bernice Holtzman’s paintings and collages have appeared in shows at various venues in Manhattan, including the Back Fence in Greenwich Village, the Producer’s Club, the Black Door Gallery on W. 26th St., and one other place she can’t remember, but it was in a basement, and she was well received. She is the Assistant Art Director for Yellow Mama.