She’s small, as they say, for her age.
She’s four-foot-eight though she’s twelve
years watching this whole world revolve
around the red sun.
…………………………….She’s on stage
each day when at school or at home.
Her voice screeches loudly, can fill
her classroom and on down the hall.
She’s always the one in the gym
whose laugh or whose cry will resound
and reverberate as they play.

She screamed when she thought that she saw
a stranger beneath a large mound
of bedclothes in her parents’ room.
She took off one flip-flop and struck
her napping grandfather. The smack
was heard by everyone home.

The parents said she should have run
outside–and then called 9-1-1…

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, June 5, 2015