of a gas station sat a little girl playing with her plastic limb as if she knew she hated it. I understood her private grueling public grief. She could not hide from languid bursts of quizzing eyes-- fate a crazy, sickening fact like missing seatbelts on a bus. A carrier monkey of mortal fire--I understood burned cotton fields of severed femininity and waxing waning taxing strength. Wanted to hold her in my arms like husks just do with ears of corn. Underneath her infant lids lay incubated hazard zones. That much missive, rabid colors of the truth, I had held like dry pinatas crumbling. by Janet I. Buck |
