Elpida’s Art Class

after Yusef Komunyakaa’s “Toys in a Field”

Using borrowed
colored pencils
she draws her mother
with orange and gold
her hair to her waist
hands on
hour glass hips
hearts flying across
the page
with the letters
L and O running
right to left
V and E to follow
bobbing below the Arabic script
her mother pins her drawing
on the cubicle wall
as her older sister
stacks cards
the joker on top
gazing into
the blind sky

Elpida’s art class