She’ll be crying about her mama, saying she’s gone and do I remember when we were kids?

I’ll say yes I do, I’ll say I knew all along about everything, that she doesn’t need to explain why when I came to her house the next day she wasn’t there.

FENCE PLAYING BY COURTNEY LEIGH KIRBY 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 11

.

Carla, she is sitting on

the neighbor’s fence, one leg

dangling over either side.

She is smiling because her daddy

won’t be home tonight, and she

don’t ask why or how come mama?

has all her clothes packed up

in paper bags they’ve collected

from the grocery store. (I know

I won’t see her no more, that

they are going far away and

one day, in 15 years, I’ll

hear her voice again through a

phone line and she’ll be crying about

her mama, saying she’s gone and

do I remember when we were kids?