Annual

Collections called
A final notice of forty dollars
past due
For sitting in a stale, white walled room
Where a boy on the smoking kills poster
watches
My breasts, pale crescents
Cupped in hands
Smaller and softer than my own
Hitch in throat
She babbles to keep me calm
But I am an infant wailing for mother
Forced grin assures
It's probably benign

6/11/06

My skin was still soft
Swollen pink
Yours
Freckled
Drawing strange objects from
A wooden desk
The mirror image of mine
For the sake of grinning
There were whispers
They wanted to save you
But you were a giant sequoia
Immovable
I try to picture you then
Bathed in red
Your insides turned to ash
Wondering if it hurt
As much
As old friends
Gray and weeping
From unfamiliar features
I wanted to pull each one of you
Inside me
Take us back to the red brick building
Where children don't die

Erin Farrell is a 25 year graduate student who enjoys drawing, painting, reading, and writing.