Submissions by Lazarus_Rabinowitz

taking my stand
at the top of the slide
I glare at the line of children
chanting up at me

cry baby, cry baby, cry baby
cry baby, cry baby, cry baby
blue tears blur crimson rage
cry baby, cry baby, cry baby

the yellow-mouthed woman
has organized this attack
in retaliation for my outburst
towards a hay-haired miniature

demagogue and her pride of
speech-impaired lackeys
that rendered them confused,
floundering over one another

as I rushed at them roaring
my outrage at their preemptive ...

it was storming that day
none of us kids would stay
on our cots for nap time
the woman wanted us to sleep

she smelled like cigarettes and
sounded like a creaky door
when she spoke

she and her old man were arguing
- he wanted to let us get up,
but she wanted her smoke break
she went back and forth between
berating him in loud whispers
and shouting for us to lie back down

he had a long, bushy grey beard
and an angry voice even when he
was attempting to sound kind
he wore short-sleeved button-down ...

I was three years old
when I first went to
school - that's what
my mother called it -

a storefront on Archer
Avenue equipped with cots
and donated toys, an
old black & white television,
and a menagerie of
imposing, steel playground
equipment in the fenced-in
parking lot behind the building

the operation was run
by a middle-aged couple
who cruised the pickup route
early in the morning in a
rusted, raucous, white
station wagon, cramming
clients into the back, Indian-
style, backs...