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In the park — while her mother
& another woman hold each other & kiss —
the child counts pencils in a box:
one, two, four, five, seven.
She has already lived long enough for shadows
to pencil her in, knows hunger
& the long ache to be held —
while all along the insatiable Counter
does hold her: each one of her fingers, each breath;
while all along spring pastels everything —
the park, counting child, kissing women
& city dogs. They yap, unleashed in the gravel
& reek of their fenced-in park.
Balls & sticks fly, are caught, fly, are lost —
& none of this matters less or more than
other springs, kisses & shadows: tall ones
cast by buildings (fencing in the park
that fences in children & fenced-in dogs),
or the dun shadows thrown by EXIT signs
on each floor of every building in this heaving,
hungry city. Faces I’ll never see or see again —
all of us counted, caught & penciled in:
one, two, four, five, seven.
Copyright 2019 Laure-Anne Bosselaar. First published in A New Hunger (Ausable Press). Inclued in Vox Populi by permission of the author.
Lovely!
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Nice work!
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