Nineteen Fifty One
This poem is about being small and powerless,
Holding dolls at night through our small sleep.
In the classroom, we sit like mushrooms
Rare and exotic. Some may fruit. Some not.
Doors to the cloakroom slam shut. Families leave town.
Grade three, fulcrum of childhood. Pigtails grow longer,
Reach for fingers to comb through their knots. How
Awful our terror when the teacher clears her throat.
Desperation makes us wave these little hands.
Everything we know spills from our lips.
First Published in Sulphur River Literary Review
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