First Days​

Issue 12

School day accents—all around
the words seemed rollered flat.
She thought, This a sad country
with sad people.
 
She kept quiet, turning
to hide her bow, too big
a bow—all morning
it had followed her.
 
At lunch the others
found their places like marbles
settling inside plates, but
she ate her sandwich in the stairwell,
 
sent her prayer straight up
that glum-lit tower.
Jesus had been lonely, Mama said.
He’d wept, and besides,
 
He’d sent her gifts: the bird
that made the funny move, liking
sausage that first time, the raincoat
being where she thought it was—now
 
she imagined Him in that lunchroom
saying her name, “Gabriela…Gabriela”
smoothing it out, practicing the sound
until it was light and featureless, like air.

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Rip Underwood owned an Austin, Texas dental lab for many years but has retired and wishes to devote his energies to finding outlets for his poetry.  His work has appeared in The Bloom, Poet’s Choice, Change Seven, Volney Road Review, Book of Matches, and Poetry Super Highway.

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