We tried and tried to get it right.
We made our beds and turned out
the lights. We sat in front and
raised our hands. We made sure—
how many pages, when it was due,
what we needed to know.
We worked hard, and we paid our own way
to the movies, to school, to exhaustion. We paid
our dearest price and we paid in advance
of whatever might make us sorry later.
We paid in pennies and nickels
out of jars, in late nights and headaches,
in things swept under the rug by brooms
we wielded—each straw by itself
enough to break our backs.
We spared our dimes for a cup
of coffee, quarters for bus fare.
We handed ones out car windows
to fathers with cardboard signs, but only
if we didn’t have a five or ten. Out
of our purses we pulled our lunch money,
book money, mad money, we handed it over
to whoever needed it most and
before we knew it, we couldn’t afford
to get mad, ever again.
We spared other people’s feelings, we looked
the other way, we looked at all the reasons
why. We looked at both sides
of the story so no one could say
we hadn’t tried. We turned our other cheek
so many times our own faces became
a blur, and we could no longer see
what was right in front of us.
And none of it added up, none of it,
for all we had put in. When we got
to the bottom line, the finishing line,
there was no balance, we could not take stock,
we could not win, no matter what we did
or said or could prove. Stunned,
we put down our hands.
After a moment,
we tucked our purses out of sight.
A stillness came
and an emptiness that made us cry at first,
but like babies, soon we understood—it was ordinary
hunger, we were hungry, like everyone else.
And that, at last, was good.