Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Counted

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.

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Copyright 2019 Laure-Anne Bosselaar. First published in A New Hunger (Ausable Press). Inclued in Vox Populi by permission of the author.