We are the frail ones. We’re the feather pillows
the other kids used for their fights, the pencils
they threw across the room. We wouldn’t
even learn to walk until they made us; we said the
the grass was like needles under our feet. As adults
we still wait around for blue princes, still stand on the roof
expecting to fly. We’re the ones who can’t
hold down a job, who cry so much it seems we
were made of rain, who give our last coins
to the tap dancers on the street corner
until we’re the tap dancers on the street corner.
And you cross to the other side when you see us:
like funhouse mirrors we show you the truth —
that the world isn’t meant to be what you’ve made it,
that beneath your muscles you are nothing but need.
About Jeannine M. Pitas
Jeannine M. Pitas is a native of Buffalo, New York, currently living in Toronto. Her work has been published in Ghoti, Flashquake, Boxcar Poetry Review and Fresh Yarn. Her translation of Uruguayan poet Marosa Di Giorgio's History of Violets was published by Ugly Duckling Presse in October 2010.
