J.W.'s Younger Daughter

She was born ten years after her sister.
Her first grade class,
appropriately caught in a photo
shriveled and cracked,
has a face that is majority black.

She recalled she played by herself.
Her favorite game
was the staging of funerals
with dolls.
Sometimes a dead mouse made it real.

She buried them under the trees.

Perhaps she sang them the song
that she later sang
before she the put us to sleep,
about babes
that were lost in the wood.

and a verse that ran:

"and when they were dead,
the robins so red
brought strawberry leaves
and over them spread."

This pathetic song,
I believe
was the song of her life:
frustrated, foolish and sad!