Richard Schnap’s most recent poem to appear here was “Mercy” (December 2016)

Decision
By Richard Schnap

What makes a man hate?
Is it a father that only spoke

To berate him for something
He thought would please him?

Or is it a mother that drank
Ignoring the signs that her son

Needed her more than she believed?
And what makes a man love?

Is it the mature understanding
That his father carried wounds

From a childhood he couldn’t forget?
Or was it his mother ensnared

In a marriage her own parents
Would not free her from?

And if to hate or to love is a choice
How many must suffer till the last vote is cast?