shelter – callie daniels-howell

For K

Here you are, a nine-year-old sex worker in the walmart parking lot. Here you are, in a sequined red shirt — flimsy, translucent, bare-ly hiding the chest you aren’t old enough to grow. Here you are, nine years old. You are nine years old. Once, in that sheltered place, bumbling through heart and soul onContinueContinue reading “For K”

to be divided/whole

Bewhere your feet are,I’m told.Yet as the plane sweepstoward Kisumu, rifted valleybelow, universearound, descending towardhome,I find my mindresting notin Kenya, but justwhere my feet are:air,among clouds,at the shelter far away,that place of refugeto whom life has entrustedviolence,with the little boywho thrashed angry,body consumed with ragebigger than bones,as he looked to the sky, wonderedaloud‘what do cloudsContinueContinue reading “to be divided/whole”