Schadenfreude

We have a word for it or at least the Germans do

the frisson

of delight when an ex-boyfriend gets ugly or his girlfriend 

looks like hell 

or when Mean Sister sports a bad wig but how terrible 

how very terrible 

when that same sister enjoyed watching me beaten and I too enjoyed 

the sight of her 

stripped and screaming the web of bruises the pleasure on Mother’s face

as she slashed with her favorite whip

what scares me most isn’t the 21^st century

box cars 

to haul people away like trash it’s the pleasure 

on a leader's face

the terrible tip of the chin the armored skin what fear 

does to a face 

I was suspended in time it was almost a lyric moment when I watched 

her beaten 

I can’t say I felt fearless I felt sheltered by shadow

and what’s watching 

this memed country-wide slash and burn 

doing to us all

what shame what terror to feel safe for now 

until we’re not

there’s another word from German freudenfreude 

which means pleasure 

at someone else’s pleasure from freuden which means joy

and freude 

which means joy which is how it feels to make love and what it feels like

when your kid

hits a home run and what it feels like when the elderly sit at the edge

of a music hall

watching the beautiful slowdance to hear the word 

its little heartbeat

freudenfreude freudenfreude freudenfreude its taptaptap

to the heart

like a stone about to shatter.

originally appears in Missouri Review