Tin Dreams
I, an echo
a big-city girl.
I played in the streets
desires resonating into dreams
spiraling to black.
Destitute, rattled by change.
My heart hung heavy with lead,
fillings for shrapnel words
that pierced my heart,
captured my future.
Shaken,
a whole now broken
the value now less
than a basket of tin.
Our childish games
led us here to a game played with pawns wrapped in blankets
plodding on cardboard squares.
His eyes,
the color of aluminum.
Cheap.
His scent
once comforting,
smoldered in my nostrils,
fire and ammonia.
We lived
a dream made of cutouts
a diorama
decomposed.
Bodies thin,
the texture of yellowed newspaper.
I deconstructed,
a crumpled can
discarded.
© 2009 by Michelle Ferris
