Each Day

What She Learned

We never noticed

maybe she was never here

until the police cars, the rumpled man,

actual handcuffs,

the headline that never named her

but everybody knew.

Next day she came to school,

a little girl with blond ringlets

walking as if rope held her arms to her ribs,

as if sharp teeth might seize an extended finger,

as if wild wolves might pounce when

she made one glance to the side.

She kept her head up, met no one's eye.

She wore makeup like a grownup, only more,

maybe she always had

but we never saw.

One boy began to say "Did he actually—?"

She flinched, we stopped.

Not mercy that held us back, but fear.

Her knowledge no class would teach.

She won that day, simply by showing up.

First published in The Literary Nest