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50 Years Into the War on Poverty, Hardship Hits Back --NY Times, April 20, 2014 |
The yard is mud
with a rug on the grass
and playset without swings.
There is a stove on the porch,
a bike on the steps,
twin satellite dishes on the tin roof.
I wear my granddad's slippers
and my own jeans
and I tell the dog to jump
for his biscuit
but the cat's hungry, too,
and everyone else
is still asleep.
My long hair swings
when I turn.
The dog barks again.
The sky in the trees
is white like
this is the beginning
or is this the end.
I don't know which.
Ann Malaspina’s "Counting" was published in The New Verse News in 2009. She is a poet and children's author living in New Jersey.