A lily in a burdock nosegay, she holds the center pole surrounded by other herded children - two mongoloid boys swing to the train's rhythm, playing catch with words they mouth through the subway's steel scream; two girls, eyes dusty as tenement windows, hold hands as though grasping inanimate objects. She, one perfect note in this off-key chorus, face radiant as a Renaissance angel with what we believe makes humans most divine, grunts and squeals and growls. The young woman with movie-star hair, who chaperons this congregation of Down's and other damage, reprimands her back to silence. Her face retaining ecstasy swarms fireflies in a jar sealed by aphasia. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LACK OF STEADFASTNESS; BALLAD by GEOFFREY CHAUCER THE GARDEN SEAT by THOMAS HARDY TO AMERICA by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON TOM MOONEY by WILLIAM ELLERY LEONARD THE THREE ENEMIES by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI WAR AUTOBIOGRAPHY; WRITTEN IN ILLNESS by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN LE ROI EST MORT. VIVE LE ROI! by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT |