Little Girls

I counted the night cats Cat, Cat Two, Cat on a dark wander, walking, I watched the children play, laughing in their tumbling with a puppy on the grass. Little girls. There, something missing. Not to be frightened to step foreward, I passed by. And there, calmly happy, I watched the train move the night wake with its rumble, and in its absence felt the warmth of the track with my hand. As I walked away a child was bawling while I knew the mother’s soul delivered itself outward with the cry. Hers and the train’s cry. Hers the more I hear breaking. We forget. And the child, older, looking out in the dark window, quickly hid her head behind the curtain.

August 1971