Cassandra

Cassandra was twenty-three,

and she knew everything.

Everything, it was all so clear,

but she was unable to persuade a soul.

Certainly not her parents,

whose only topics of conversation

were money and taxes.

Certainly not her uncle

with his mind

like a rusty bear trap

slammed shut.

Certainly not her aunt,

with her furrowed brow

and shaking hands,

who just wanted to make

everything nice,

nice.

Cassandra’s little sister, still

too young to know anything,

believed in fairy princesses,

waved her plastic wand around,

sometimes smacking people in the head

when she cast her spell.

And the middle child,

her brother,

now at sixteen,

some kind of feral animal.

He’d speak only of sports

and the latest superhero movie

and disappear for long stretches

and fought with his parents

over the car,

and maybe soon he’d know everything too,

but for now,

he was moved only by the basest

biological urges.

So Cassandra was alone,

with her sighs and eye rolls.

And her uncle would take the bait

with a sneering mouth,

spitting out flecks of food as he talked,

and after a couple of minutes,

when voices started to be raised,

his wife would lightly touch his arm

and forbid him with her eyes.

Let’s just be nice,

be nice.

But Cassandra had no time

to be nice.

When she dreamt at night,

she saw visions of burning cities

and blasted landscapes,

and starving refugees

while her family sat at the dinner table,

as always,

passing butter and Hawaiian rolls.

The worst part of it all

was there would be no one left

at the end

to whom she could say,

“I told you so.”