sadness: 3 portraits

Cry into the dishwater, baby.
Cry and cry,
and hope somebody hears you.
Cry until you're done
and then cry some more
because the dishes are done
and you're still crying.

Cry into the washing machine, baby.
Cry and let go.
But when the letting go stops,
just don't-
don't
block up the entrance
again.
Don't-

* * *

"Many scholars agree that Indian evangelism, as a whole, was not a story of success, the greatest reason being the intense conflict between the two cultures for supremacy over the land. But perhaps equally important was the deep-seated belief of white America that Indians were racially inferior and that their culture was not worth saving." -Ruth A. Tucker in From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya

* * *

Pages of faces flash before me.
Whose are you if not mine?
Whose are you if not anyone else's?
You are not your parents'
anymore
You are your own;
you are God's-
a small comfort
to you
right now.
Orphan children.