The Women Who Come to Us
by Trudi Barnum
They show up at our door, black trash bags
and children in tow. We are a small shelter.
How to decide who to take?
We provide the first apartment to a woman
who holds two part-time jobs and keeps a tight rein
on five kids. Two of the children belong to relatives
who live on the street. Another is autistic.
She mourns for her youngest child,
lost to a father who skipped town.
Apartment # 2, empty until the next interview.
The previous tenant invited her paramour in,
strictly against the rules. He made his way
into her bed, then into the beds of her children.
I still love him she says, even though
he chokes her until she loses consciousness.
We held the third apartment for a woman
who no longer has to leave her three-year-old
twins alone at night while she works the streets.
She is filled with gratitude to find a day job
cleaning rooms at a local motel.
Apartment # 4: a twelve-year-old girl
becomes mother to a dying mother.
Mom refuses hospitalization.
No relatives to take the girl,
the only way to keep her daughter
out of foster care is for Mom to keep living.
We dread making that phone call.
As long as I’m breathing, she tells us.
As long as I’m breathing.
T J Barnum writes extensively about life, family, politics and spirituality. Her poems, prose and memoir shorts have been published in literary journals, including ‘Rivet: The Journal That Risks,’ ‘Better Than Starbucks,’ ‘The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature,’ ‘The Moon Magazine’ and others.
