Untitled - ScholarWorks Home - California State University, Northridge

A Self-Enclosed Sorrow
Olga Vaynkof
people become smaller, you know.
Some don't realize .it,
sensing only that their fall will hurt less
the closer they are to the ground.
There is less to hurt;
small stones don't shatter
like boulders do.
People grow smaller. Careful,
or not, they slip between thoughts
and are gone.
Like rings: petite treasures
are lost only once,
ending up tucked away in the night's jam,
unfound forever.
One might gleam them in the grass
or among glass shards small enough
never to be broken again.
They're survived by bastard intestinal pits
and waxed smiles, leaving us to roam
indifferent days, lonely as dial tones.
People grow smaller.
They do.
70