MORE WAYS
There are more ways to terrorize
than stack bricks on the border higher than Denali.
More sinister ways to banish.
Darth Vader lurks on the screen
and with a flourish of a golden pen
rewrites the narratives of children’s lives.
Lizet, whose name means “beauty” and sounds like love,
composes words that weep her Mamá’s tears,
confesses worries desperate as packed suitcases
waiting by the front door.
“Mamá says if she goes, I go with her.”
Rhiannon Ross teaches youth poetry workshops for In Our Own Words, a Missouri Arts Council-funded program. She serves on the Riverfront Reading Series committee, the Jump Start Art KC board, and as a regional co-coordinator for Poetry Out Loud. She received a 2012 Rocket Grant for community project Vox Narro.
