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WHCmarlenemountain

 

 

whcmm poetry selections
marlene mountain, editor
paul conneally, editor

Looking at Maggie's First Grade Picture and Remembering

jennie townsend
Johannesburg, RSA

class picture
sometimes I have to point to the day moon

self-expression
she doesn't don't know how to read her face either

summer Saturday
your face a silhouette at the door

One day when Maggie was six year's old, she was sitting on the floor, nearly asleep. I bent down to pick her up. She snapped her head up and briskly signed "No."

With her hand splayed, she placed it on a square of linoleum ... "Sun on floor!" Her first sentence! What a fuss I made over her!

"Yes, Maggie!  That's the sun shining on the floor!"

I tried again to pick her up. She grabbed my wrist and urged me to touch the floor with her ... "Hot!"

"Yes, it is hot, it's warm from the sun ... the sun on the floor, oh!"

To this day, how much she must know but can't express.

heirloom blanket
these stars in her eyes aren't on any map

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