Striking Sonnet 1

To hit or not to; is there a question?
When she scratches her baby brother’s skull
with her sharpest nail while I breastfeed him?
Spits in my face when I give her a time-out?
Smacks my cheek in the backseat of the car?
Bites my arm at the end of music class?
Throws a magnet at me when I say “Please,
be gentle. Pulling his arm is not nice.”
Don’t know how else to bear this insolence.
A lightning pulse commands my arms to strike:
I drag her off the baby to her room.
I smack her in the face and say, “Don’t hit.”
Then my quake dies down. In the aftermath,
wails, quivering words: “No! You no hitting.”