Front Porch Review
A literary magazine for the young at heart and mind

Monday's child is fair of face
You were Monday's child
So what was fair?
Your hair, like silken thread
your smile
your eyes, your chin
your tiny ears
Fair, like fairy
ephemeral
fair, not false
a cut flower
Dew glimmering in the sunlight
a passing firefly
a summer breeze.

You had a way of marking
disappointments -
arms folded across your chest, lips pursed
a bulwark against injustice.
You were fragile, but a mighty warrior,
you didn't fool me with that act of defiance
when pain was too great to bear
You curled your lip, your eyes asked,         why?

Disappointment, a frequent visitor
You were not like the other children
You knew no fears
              only barriers to your desires.

One day
we watched the kitten
scamper up the tree
while the mutt in hot pursuit
could only bark jumping up
and down on the ground below
pounding with desire. I laughed
at the all too familiar scene
but you
you hugged the mutt
to comfort him.

Nature designed you
one chromosome above the rest
I used to quarrel with that random choice
until    I heard     you sob
at the end of Peter Pan
            when Tinker Bell died.          

By Jo Stewart

Jo Stewart: “Retirement has been an opportunity to have the time to read great books, to share with contemporaries and to write poems when the muse visits."