REBELLIOUS

As a child, Sandra’s mother

dreamed of playing the flute.

Every night as she drifted to sleep,

she imagined high-pitched notes

echoing in a cavernous music hall.

As time went on, those dreams,

those ethereal notes,

never came to fruition.

Sandra knows

that she can fulfill her mother’s dream.

Every night she stays up late,

long after the sun has gone down.

Every night she teaches herself

what her mother never learned.

Now every night

as Sandra’s mother drifts to sleep,

she can hear mellifluous notes

played with her daughter’s love.

LAZY

Sebastian was only twelve

when his father passed away.

Being the eldest sibling,

he knew he had responsibility

to his brothers, to his mother.

Every night, after his mother came from work

and passed out after twelve hours of standing,

Sebastian made lunches for his siblings.

After attaching hand-written notes,

after making sandwiches with care,

he finally went to sleep

the scent of lettuce on his fingers.

UNRELIABLE

On the paper route

Joe throws a black and white bundle

in front of each door.

On every day of every season,

Joe rides his bike along the road.

He knows his task,

the neighbors and journalists

relying upon him.

So hours before school,

he always pedals

down the cracked pavement

of his neighborhood,

the sun rising behind him,

his jacket flapping in the wind.

SELFISH

Olivia wakes up at the first caw of the blackbird

for a drive to the local community center

on the first day of Winter break.

She arrives at the center

and gets right to work.

While her friends are packing their skis

for their trip to the mountains,

Olivia packs boxes of clothes

to send to Syrian refugees.

She smiles with every folded article

pressed into crisp cardboard boxes,

heartful by each box loaded

into the parked U-Haul nearby.

While folding a small sweater,

she thinks of a little girl

sleeping under a tarpaulin tent

keeping warm in the woolen embrace.

This so-called “adolescent”

would rather be here,

at the community center,

skiing down the slopes

of selfless humanity.