Page 9 - Contrast1988Spring

The room began to breathe.
Chipped, white ceiling corners drawing closer,

then farther away.
A trip across the scattered floor,
through the heavy, chained and bolted black oak door,
down the dim, creaking passage to the '78 Dodge Dart--

the real world.

It was calling me.
--I hope he don't have a badge--

begging me

--or a gun.

Stanford Vinson

Changing Hands

The slender fingers reach out to touch a photograph-
Look at them: worn with time, battered by age
These were the fingertips that once caressed your tender face,
The fingernails that once roamed your spine,
The palms that once smoothed the hair back from your

forehead.
These are the fingertips that now poke accusingly into your

flesh,
The fingernails that savagely rip your skin in anger,
The palms that batter your cruel and spiteful face.
The slender fingers no longer give pleasure, but bite with pain.
They are merely the voice of dejection and emptiness inside.

Rhonda Sue Mize 5

Contrast Spring 1988