Little Girls

At every bus stop in America,

little girls holding the hands of their

mothers tight and steady like a heartbeat.

They watch the men at work.

They watch the mercy that he

shows with a jackhammer on the pavement.

Their mothers will pull them tighter now,

as they see their baby’s grave in that concrete.

Little girls look to their mothers and their

lightly shrouded faces.

Peeking back from fabric but afraid to be too bold.

They’ll learn like their mothers

the danger of a face too faintly inviting.

Wandering away to a kind word, a candy cane or compliment, they’ll end

up in Louisiana tangled in the tree roots. The world listens to their words now,

singing songs along the waterways.

Under every highway in America,

little girls laughing at the ditchwater.

Holding vigils with the Virgin Mary cutting

deep into their throats, chain pulled tight for fear they’ll lose her like their mothers did.

They will see what the snickering man can offer, barefoot and still

bleeding, they will judge it best they can.

Little girls hold out their hands to him,

in the light grey honda civic, in the pouring rain

and the pants that drag too low.

Not God, never God.

The Virgin Mary weeps with raindrops on their collarbones.

On every gravestone in America, in every hospital gown

and high rise hotel, at every corner on every block in every city,

little girls are growing in America.

And you hear their mothers crying, fathers cursing

as the dark back alleys and crowded old freeways whisper

“more, more, more.”