She Was Someone’s Little Girl

Karen has a room on York,

a far cry from the mansion she lost on Winter.

Maybe it isn’t far.

Three miles, give or take,

seen differently by car, bus, or foot.

It’s far enough she can’t walk over to look at it any more.

Truth be told,

it wasn’t ever a mansion

except in Karen’s heart.

It was an investment

to the man who scarfed it for a song at auction

and remains a source of irritation

to the renters who pay a small fortune for it now,

getting little in return for their money.

It was a cry, for sure.

That part was true and never changes.

Karen was someone’s little girl. Had to be.

Mothers can’t run out before the baby is born,

so she belonged to someone for a few minutes

no matter what happened later.

Like all little girls,

she came into the world with innocent eyes

and a spontaneous smile.

Maybe the investor got what was left of those at auction too.

With or without joy,

Karen was someone’s pride at some point. 

Someone clapped when she took her first run across the room,

and noticed when she strung her vocabulary into a full sentence.

Surely, Miss Gray patted herself on the back

for implanting the multiplication tables in Karen’s hard head,

and Johnny Rogers puffed his chest

over distracting her from them.

Ah, yes, Karen was someone’s crush.

She attracted plenty of attention

from the football player who shared her table in biology class,

and the big eared boy on the bus.

And there was that driver at the moving company

where she answered phones after graduation,

who couldn’t keep his eyes off her.

She might even be someone’s unforgettable first love. 

She thinks she was someone’s wife in the seventies

He might have died,

or wanted her dead

and he might still dream about her smile.

Speaking of smiles,

she smiled a lot on Winter,

when she was someone’s neighbor.

She waved from her chair on the porch,

took soup over when someone was sick,

shoveled Mr. Turner’s steps,

and made a quilt for every baby born on the street.

She didn’t get to smile the day she left.

They weren’t out there

when she sorted through her things at the curb

to gather what she could carry,

but she would smile the next time she saw them.

She walked back to Winter as long as she could,

because babies aren’t born on York

and there aren’t any porches.

She would walk back to Winter to look for smiles,

if she could still walk

She smiled a lot when she still had teeth,

and others smiled back.

She had teeth when she still had insurance.

Teeth and glasses, and allergy medicine

so her eyes and nose weren’t so runny, and red. 

Maybe she’s glad she doesn’t have glasses on York,

so she doesn’t know when people don’t smile back.

She had insurance when she still had a job.

She was somebody’s valued employee for twenty years

and has a pin to prove it. 

Well, she had the pin

until she lost it on the curb on Winter,

but sometimes she still has memories of the job she loved.

She had a job when she still had her health,

or at least when she still had the strength

to pretend she had her health.

She was someone’s inspiration

when she ignored her pain

and continued to work

for her insurance and smile. 

The doctor got that

long before the investor came along.

She was someone’s friend

when she still had health and a job

and teeth and a smile.

She was everyone’s friend.

She loved.

She cared.

She was someone’s savior,

everyone’s champion,

a crusader of causes.

She is someone’s cause now.

She is someone else’s sin.

Sandy Knauer

ã 2005