I asked my father his
Intentions.
He grew angry when I said the
Word.
I think he was upset because
I had thought of it first.
He always wanted to be original.
Mother began to cross-stitch
Furiously
As my father grew increasingly
Furious.
When I was eleven the marriage ended.
Blair and I returned to playing pioneer
Underneath an elm tree.
It was never to be the same game on High Street.
Mother worked at the Custom House.
The pillows lay in a box uncompleted
In the attic.
Father was weekends.
I think Blair thinks
We come from a broken home.
I think we're the perfect
Nuclear family.

by H. C., Newburyport, MA



A Game That I Play

by K. H.,Suffield, CT

Heat beats upon my outstretched leg, and a bug naps undisturbed on my toe. I glance at the sky and through slanted eyes, I view a psychopathic cloud devour another.

A police bird comes to the rescue and pokes his beak through that insane puff of white and I applauded at the rescue. But I am cut short by the stares of the others who wonder why I laugh.

I stick out my tongue and roll onto my side in time to see a bug try to scurry away. So I pretend that my long fingers are the legs of a giant and walk them right up to that bug's behind. "Fee, fi, fo, fum," I whisper as his teeny little world earthquakes all around. But then super fluffy bee puts a damper on my game as he lands in the giant's tracks and that giant scurries quickly into my pocket. Then I laugh and I'm cut short by the stares of the others who wonder, "at what?"

A raindrop falls upon my nose and I look up to see a dark cloud. That's when I wonder if I too am part of someone's game - a game that they play to amuse themselves in a creative way. Is the dark cloud a shadow of some little boy who holds a watering can above our teeny world? And I wonder, when he laughs, is he too cut short by the stares that wonder why?