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| Image courtesy of sighthound through Creative Commons. |
See my little girl?
She can read a book
make change for a twenty
tell you what star is what.
She doesn't need
school or love or dolls.
She knows winter is hard
and beds are soft
pumpkins
grow on vines.
She knows
what's useless:
the soft spade
the easy turn.
Maybe in Mississippi
somewhere
the soil is wet and sweet
ready for asparagus
or juicy fruit
but not here.
Here the ground is clay
more clay than dirt.
Here, you see a dog
you know he's leaving.
John Guzlowski’s writing has appeared in The Ontario Review, Atlanta Review, Exquisite Corpse and other journals. His poems about his parents’ experiences in Nazi concentration camps appear in his book Lightning and Ashes. He also blogs about his parents and their experiences.
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