We sit on metal chairs,
no coffee, smokes or snacks,
while two gray women set us straight:
the broken bones, the burns, the belts,
they drone, they tell some inside jokes,
at the break my husband begs to go.
But in these women’s faces I see
the exhaustion of soldiers
on a forced march,
bowed under the bodies of those
they couldn’t bear
to leave behind.
And when, marching, they fall asleep,
what do they see?
Small girls in pink tights,
top-heavy yellow hair bows
like the crests of cranes,
who rise on slender legs
to spin
below barred windows
in a narrow beam
of gold—
motes
defying gravity.