the Town is quiet now


they all left in a long Train


Of suffocating wooden cars

…some were crying. my heart cringes to see grown Men



cry.


maybe Tears are evidence that they are inferior
but I don’t


Understand
just today


the rest of us played,

now they tramp through the Dust to where?

now they board the boarded-Up cars…


now they give up Hope as the train-wheels squeak



a Girl in the crowd



held a doll, a sack-doll, a rag-tag cloth Doll

With beaded eyes and pink Cheeks

I Watched her pass watched her care-Worn eyes too old

her yellow Star burning a hole in her breast






more deadly
than a thousand

angry Guns

she dropped the doll in the




bustle, trample, pell-Mell




whirlwind
bent to pick it up

A shot rings










out.




No explanation,
just the whimpers of




her mother
as
she

rots and spoils



in the





Heat.
the doll waits in the Mud


too-bright Cheeks smudged with mud






Crushed into the mud




the Nightmare continues for hours



i should go home but i don’t and no one picks up the doll or the girl who by now is attracting Crows and Fleas and Flies while the soldiers smile and nod and dance with other little girls



and when the procession finally ends and the wheels are set in motion and


hands


wave out of barred windows




and the soldiers disappear with their girls

the Doll leers out of the mud










i want to pick it up








cradle it like She did








the only memory








of a little Star-girl

the doll waits in the Mud for days until the garbage collector




takes it away with

the rest of the Dirt



No one remembers – no one cares











Because









the town is Quiet now…