by Alice Campbell Romano
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Bronxville. The rain is scant at this very moment, sky almost blue, but it comes and goes in pelting drops. Here, just now, balls bounce against air: red, yellow, green, until I see they decorate a transparent, plastic umbrella, a dome of delight where safe from random drops a child dances down the sidewalk. A skinny stick of a kid, maybe nine, in a long, silly raincoat mom must have insisted upon. But who cares. School’s out now, the umbrella is fun and soon I’ll be home to snacks and hugs. Oh, such strong hugs. Nashville. One image stays. A face behind a school bus window. A child, a little girl, the caption says. Yes, that’s right, but when I first see the picture, she has no age. Her lips are bent, stretched open so wide side-to-side they eat into her cheeks. Her chin is a crinkled dimple squashed against the glass, her frown pulls a hard vee down between her eyes to her hot red nose. Her hand presses the glass, pushes away what she left outside. I don’t hear her scream. Of course not, I’m looking at a picture taken from outside the bus. The child is frozen behind the window glass in the red heat of wordless pain. She may scream, may break down and cry, but not yet. The photographer—what astonishing luck—releases this moment of unbearable distortion—her little face, the rest of her life. And now I notice, stenciled above the bus window, a descriptor—Emergency Exit. There are no emergency exits. Voice the scream for her. Take to the streets. Make it so children dance as they go home.
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Editor's note: The photograph described in the second section of this poem accompanies Marsha Owens' March 27 prose poem in The New Verse News.
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Alice Campbell Romano is a New Yorker who spent more than a decade in Italy, adapting Italian movie scripts into English. Her work has been published in print journals and online.