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. |