On the back seat of the car
Dressed all in pink,
Pink animal-shaped school bags,
Four little sandled feet
Pointing upwards from the seat.
Two little girls.
Two best friends.
Play together every day
In the school playground
In fantasy corner.
Two little girls
Wearing safety belts
On the back seat.
Two little mouths
Talking and singing,
Sharing school songs
And games from fantasy corner.
Then pensive silence.
Finally broken
As one best friend asks
“Do you get scared at night?”
“No”.
“The shots and shouts in our street scare me.
Mommy says to hide under the bed
So bullets can’t hit us”.
“Oh”.
Two little girls.
Two worlds.
Two planets.
Their orbits’ only overlap
In fantasy corner.
How do we
Remove the force of poverty
That pulls the orbits apart?
How do we
Make one world
For the future
Of two little girls?
SHARON HEANEY STANSFIELD
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