before she knew
all fifty states
her father beat his fist
steady as a heartbeat
on an old screen door down the block
it was May, I think
some time for shorts
she squirmed in the background
a poster child of name-calling
one knee scabbed, one just plain old skinny
“your son did this” he called from the
bottom of the concrete stair
she looked down on us in a
nightgown on a Monday
and simply said “no”
for the boy who’d failed
the first grade three times
he hid, or maybe not
in his bedroom, trains and crayons
while she kicked garbage
on a hot sidewalk
but she was there, she held her aching scalp
from all the pulling on the
only time in history she had braids
past her shoulder blades
to this day
fragments of a
girl too small for
things like politics
and death
are
buried
in the smoke
that dances upwards
from a hot city sidewalk
Nicole Marie