Angel

Bent down and kissed the sleeping night

Night woke to blush; the sprite was gone

Men saw the blush and called it dawn

- Paul Laurence Dunbar

Yesterday's A Memory

To say goodbye to yesterday

You must dream about tomorrow

Let the waters of your future

Drown away your sorrow

For the past will never live again

Only the memories exist

You can never buy back your yesterdays

No matter how hard you wish

- Erin Quinlan

Reflections

I look into the mirror

And see to my suprise

A wholly different person

Looking deep into my eyes

The carefree little girl I saw

When I was 4 or 5

Has now become a young woman

Fighting to survive

It's really sort of scary

That time has gone so fast

For what then I called the present

Has now become the past

I look into the mirror

And looking back at me

Is the face of a young woman

Where a little girl used to be

- Ruthie Jancito

On Violence and Violets

Teen years as festive as Lupercalia

Filled with football and dances

Letter sweaters, used Chevys

Voted couple most likely to get married

She wore his ring and wrote his name

Across daydream desks

He hit her once when she lingered at her locker

But spilling tears and apologies

He brought bouquets of violets and promises of prom

Friends forwarned her Desdemona days

But still she loved him, knew marriage would change him

Their wedding day dawned

As she hid eye bruises beneath blue shadow

To walk at his side

Wearing violets in her hair

Passing years produced crying babies, unpaid bills

Fights more frequent

Until one day, battered and bruised

She lay in a grave, beneath a violet spray

Awash with his tears