by E.F. Schraeder
Slight girl, no more than six:
pallid faced, like hunger
just before vitamin deficiencies.
The collapse of a small frame
a quiet thing, easy to miss
as glacial ice melting
from below as an ocean warms.
Her eyes a little sunken,
voice a little flat. She shrugs
when you ask how she is
or what she wants to be
when grown up, a time too late
from what she needs now.
Passing check up at school
with the right boxes checked,
vaccines and illness history.
TANF is silent as a moon, and
no one from Children’s Services
ever asks how she feels.
Not even an expert teacher
responsible for the curriculum
of standardized materials
can pause to listen to her
unexceptional cues of disappointment.
E.F. Schraeder's poems have appeared or are forthcoming at Haz Mat Review, Five Poetry, Corvus Magazine, New Verse News, and other journals. She is currently working on a new manuscript of poems.
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