INTO CUPPED HANDS
The ice-cream man always
had change; change can be difficult
at times. In those times everyone
walked. There was playground then snack
then recess then lunch—flat wooden
spoons twirling in cups for dessert. Into
cupped hands falling snow could be trapped
then into your mouth and maybe a fight and
inside for current events. Outside
for fire drill and inside again under
your desk if an air raid but never
a siren. Understood this not to be real
but a practice though one mother
seemed proud of her bomb shelter also
not real just a hallway she said
could protect. If you could
you would not want a mother to say
that: you would want what you always had.
Laurie Sewall’s poetry has appeared in Ploughshares, Colorado Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Cimarron Review, Permafrost, Louisville Review, and Minnesota Review, among other publications. She lives in Iowa.