Mother and Child

Kwame Dawes

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A bare room, old pink and white paint splotched on the walls, green paint peeling up from the floors. The only object within it is a lone refrigerator. A young child lies on her back on the floor, playing with a naked doll.

Mama, you know a mother’s
supposed to be there when a cry
flies out of her hungry child,

but you are nodding in the corner,
riding your high, the plastic
stained with our blood;

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