Claire
Two children squat on the sidewalk
outside their apartment building
stirring a mud puddle with twigs
after a storm.
Hey this looks like
chocolate milk!
Whoa. We could give it to
Claire in a dixie cup and
say it was chocolate milk,
and maybe
she would fall for it.
How does it first arise, I wonder—
the flash of cruelty, the severing of
connection. And by what grace
do we transcend this callous othering?