Where are the children who inhabit my soul?
Who dance in the garden of my mind?
Where are the children who suffer small indignities of deprivation?
wear outsized shoes and too tight shirts?
Where are the children who sit with aging grandpas watching baseball games
just to feel the closeness and attention of another body?
the attention of an adult?
Where are the children whose books and toys are thrown away
because they are too difficult to clean around? put away? save for another day?
Where are the children who haven't had the experience of a loving grandmother?
who spoils them with her every breath?
Where are the children who aren't sure they'll get enough to eat one day
and too much to eat the next?
Where are the children?
Where are the children?
Where are the children?
only in my heart.
