Ellie Renz
Alex
She says she does her best
studying sitting on street corners,
textbook resting on skinny thighs,
back pressed up against a
concrete wall. She has
a worn cardboard sign asking
for donations, any small amount
of generosity
will help.
The dog nestled against her
hip is tired and mostly goes
unnoticed. The city is sweltering,
then violently cold and some sweet
suburban mother offers her a few
dollars to go warm up with a cup
of hot chocolate.
When she’s reading
about astronomy she lies flat on
the sidewalk at night pretending streetlights
are stars and she can point out the galaxies.
She learns about Mexico, Africa, China and
other places the smattering of change and
dollar bills in her cup will never take her.
She’ll finish college
one day.
Somewhere in a warm bed
there is a friend who is pretty
sure she has lost her. A friend
who contemplates letting go.
Somewhere in a screaming house
there is a mom who doesn’t really
think about her. Who has already
let go.
She strains her eyes to read by streetlight
after the sun has gone down for the day,
the dog moves a little closer so they can
borrow each other’s warmth and they
stay. They hang on.
The Burial
The soldiers stand at attention,
my brother’s ashes are in an urn
sitting on the table, and I know
that this is the point where I am
supposed to cry, where there should
be a visible tremor in my shoulders
as I try to keep a sob from escaping
and breaking the silence. But
all I can seem to do is stare at the eyes
of the men who move so rigidly,
searching for any indication of emotion.
I want confusion, sadness, curiosity,
anything but this empty plate of solemnity.
I want them to understand.
I need them to know how
sometimes I had to stay up
late to guide his wobbling
body to a bed. How he
drank too much and lost his
temper too quickly, but
there were people who loved
him unconditionally and not
necessarily in spite of.
He wasn’t a great man, no one
is going to stand up and call
him a hero, but he is my
brother and I think he deserves
a flicker, one small misstep.
--
Ellie Renz is a senior in Lewis University’s College of Education. She won the 2011 Delta Epsilon Sigma Gamma Chi Chapter’s Paper Writing Contest in the category of poetry.