They zipped to the gate where I couldn’t
see them. I should have gone over, in case
she was pushing dirt into her mouth
or he was about to shove her, but the quiet held me
and I scrolled through my phone, reading
my parents’ and in-laws’ comments
on the photos of my children
looking cute in the park that morning.
My son trotted over holding a pebble.
He put into the paten of my hands.
Then his sister skipped over with a stone,
handed it to me then gambolled to the gate
again. Her brother solemnly brought another,
my gift-pile growing.
Sam Szanto lives in Durham, UK. Her poetry pamphlet 'This Was Your Mother' was one of the winners of the 2023 Dreich Slims Contest. Her collaborative pamphlet, ‘Splashing Pink’, was published by Hedgehog Press and is a Poetry Book Society Winter Pamphlet Choice. She won the 2020 Charroux Poetry Prize and the Twelfth First Writer International Poetry Prize. Her poems have been published in journals including ‘Northern Gravy’, ‘The North’ and ‘The Storms’. She has an MA in Writing Poetry with Distinction from the Poetry School. Her short story collection, ‘If No One Speaks’, was published by Alien Buddha Press.
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