For the Plain Girls
 

    The Amish School
    West Nickel Mines, PA
    October 2, 2006

Like paper dolls unfolding at the board,
he lines them up and binds their feet; he speaks
few words as he unloads his general store
of ammunition and supplies; the shriek

of one red-tail floats high above the glass
he’s nailing shut. His gun-wave shoos the boys
outside; their hair swings through the meadow grass
where forced-out pheasants meet the rising noise.

Please, shoot me first, a tall girl says — he scans
and fires, delivering a long, white swirl
of aprons to the floor... they still hold hands.
The starlings perched in sycamores unfurl.

Two sisters lie together in white pine.
Forgiveness doesn’t mean we can’t ask, why?  

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Marybeth Rua-Larsen lived and worked in Lancaster, PA for 9 years and shared the local midwife and birthing center with some of the families who lost daughters in the Nickel Mines tragedy. She has since moved back to her native Massachusetts and has had poems published or forthcoming in Blue Unicorn, Color Wheel, The Worcester Review and others. She was also a finalist for the 2007 Philbrick Poetry Award.  

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autumn 2007 | kaleidowhirl
books and chapbooks from authors in this issue