like everyone, I love children,
their fat leg rolls, their mussed hair,
their little sneakers lighting up the summer.
once, I was small like that, a curious wandering eye,
a bell or pinwheel turning my head,
the gap between my mother’s teeth
beckoning me back.
somewhere swimming inside me is a question
I don’t want to answer. it’s not my name I hear,
but something else, drowning in its own fluid.
a girl on the ferry smiles at me. I smile back—
& it seems to mean the world to her.
Copyright © 2025 by Kyla Marshell. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 16, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
