God's
Country
In the
store, near fisticuffs
as one old man (with one item)
tries to cut in front of another
old man (with a cartload of items)
who then lectures the first
on the what-goes-around-comes-
around theory of the world,
as he has never been allowed
to cut in line himself.
In the restaurant, the haunted
little girl picks the table for the
family, steadfast in her decision,
only to watch her small brother,
maybe two, smacked by her father
and told to "sit the fuck down."
The girl never leaves her seat.
Years before, another haunted girl
finds her repeated "No!" falling
on the deaf ears of a stranger,
who will take from her something
she didn't know she possessed,
leaving her, years later, to find other
words in the dim morning light
before a makeshift journal
while her lover sleeps alone.
Copyright © 2002 Jeremiah Gilbert