I see them coming from
behind the layer of mesh
glass being lead by a white
coat to the table of pastels
and crayons where us fuck
ups scribble serenity onto a
blank page. They’re not not
my friends or family, it’s
the emaciated late teen’s
next to me, the one who’s
too lost to look up. It’s his
parents I think by the way
their deflated walk and hung
faces greet him as he shades
his leafless tree. It’s not till they
are behind him noting his precise
hand that he turns towards their
shadows and without smiling wonders
aloud why they came. Wounded, they
remind him they’re his parents and
that they are here now. He shows them the
tight bracelet on his left arm and the warp
around his wrist of that drawing hand and
reminds them they weren’t there then.
Erric Emerson is currently the poetry editor of Duende, an undergraduate journal from Goddard College, the first edition of which is due out in the autumn of 2014. His poetry has been published in Collage literary journal in the 2011 and 2012 editions. He is a poet from Philadelphia Pennsylvania, currently studying a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Creative Writing degree at Goddard College. He previously held the position of Creative Writing Club President at Brookdale Community College.