A CONGREGATE FAMILY SHELTER     

by Lorri Ventura
 

Signs taped on every windowsill
Reminders to please not toss
Dirty diapers out on the lawn
Toilet paper kept in locked cabinets
Permission required to access a roll
Eight families sharing one kitchen
A screaming match triggered by
A soup ladle's disappearance
Eleven children sniffle and sneeze
With a shared head cold
A little girl turns somersaults
On a graffiti-bedecked This End Up couch
As two toddlers, arms linked, share a lollipop
On a frayed carpet in front of a TV
Watching "Paw Patrol" at full volume
And a boy caped in a bath towel
Tears up and down the hallway
The world's cutest Superman
A young woman plants a bouquet
Of sleepy kisses
On her baby's head
Grease stains on her red Arby's apron
Nighttime descends
A mother forms a comma around her child
On the cot they share
And falls asleep
Dreaming of a world in which a full-time job
Stocking Walmart shelves
Pays enough for an apartment
And for selfhood


* * * * *

Lorri Ventura is a retired special education administrator living in Massachusetts. She is new to poetry-writing. Her poems have been featured in several anthologies, in Red Eft Journal, and in Quabbin Quills. She is a two-time winner of Writing In A Woman's Voice's Moon Prize.