The
Deborah Home
for abused & neglected children
San Juan
she
stoops
beside
concrete walls
bone
china white.
barely
8
the
brown-legged girl
clasps
stick in hand
engraves
her name
in
dirt
packed
hard and warm
from
soles of shoes
and
pulse of seasons.
her
artful strokes display
E-L-I-Z-A
M-A-R-I-A
(the
woman standing near
may
choose to care)
at
once they
hear
a
staccato
rush
of
rain
parting
the branches of reproachless palm trees.
thin
lizards
scurry
under
green-velvet foliage
and
up
along
ceiling beams in the Glorietta.
two
pairs
of
hands
shield
her name.
the
stinging drops
etch
pathways
through
their
tarps of skin,
the
name
erased
by careless
weather.
with
joined hands
they
run
to
waiting, suspended, wooden seats
where,
with
legs outstretched,
heads
back,
they
soon are laughing
as
they ripple through the air in unison.
Lynne
Freeland Bartlett