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      August 2, 2015What Do You GiveAmy Elizabeth Robinson

      What do you give to
      people who have to
      go on living?
       
      If I could give that
      thing a shape,
      a weight,
      a meaning,
      I would send it
      to them now—
       
      the mothers.
      Each would open
      her box with
      trepidation and
      then marvel at
      the
       
      What do you give to
      people who have to
      go on living across
      the courtyard
      from one another?
       
      If I could give that
      thing a texture,
      like breeze-drenched feathers,
      or water seeping
      through heavy stone,
      I would send it
      to them now—
       
      the mothers.
      Each would open
      her box with
      hope-taut aching
      bones and
      then release
      when
       
      What do you give?
      I’d like to know
      what size box to
      have on hand.
      I’d like to know
      how many open
      spaces such a
      box can handle.
      I’d like to know
      I’ll never need
      one for

      from Poets Respond

      Amy Elizabeth Robinson

      “I live in Northern California and have an eight-year-old daughter. This week an eight-year-old girl went missing from her apartment complex in Northern California. Her body was found in a dumpster, raped and killed by a fifteen-year-old boy who lived in the same apartment complex. I am also raising a son, in a world that valorizes violence and instant gratification, that feeds us alienation and shame. Both of those children’s mothers are alive. How are they going to live? I sat outside my children’s bedroom while they fell asleep tonight, and cried, feeling like there is nothing I could give, nothing that could help, and fearing, just fearing. So I had to write. But of course words are missing.”

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