School is out and kids are looking forward to an endless summer.
The lap-tops and text-books are shelved, kids are sleeping
in or on cell phones … This was written a while ago,
but part of it still holds true …
SHE’S FOURTEEN
usually she’s writing
essays, doing homework
on her laptop
at the kitchen table
or cell phone
close to her ear
eyes focused distantly
she murmurs
not the normal
everyone-listen-to-me call
but private secretive
then she texts
head bent
hair fallen forward
I wish I knew who
has the other phone
first published in Long Story Short
cell phone photo by Jon Weston
A Summer Father … Here is poetry … interweaving images culled from a wartime childhood with bittersweet memories of a “summer father”. Lynda Monahan