Release

At the grocery store
two small girls crammed together
in the front seat of a cart
designed to look like a police car.
Clearly twins though only one has glasses,
and she gets the steering wheel.

I love you, she says to me
through their blue windshield
I tilt my head, confused,
scan back to the shelves.

I love you too, her sister says.
I focus on their determined mouths
heft a soup can up and down in each hand
as though shopping by weight
before the glasses-girl says it again.

The second girl echoes her sister,
growing louder, more insistent,
until their mother appears.

She smiles at me, standing there ensnared.
Says, my girls are going through a loving phase.
Frees me to continue shopping
after a wave in the direction
of their questioning eyes.









Micki Blenkush works as a social worker and lives in St. Cloud, MN with her husband and daughter. Her writing has appeared in Nota Bene; An Anthology of Central Minnesota Writers, Limehawk, and Rose Red Review. Her poems were also recently selected to appear in two chapbooks published by Crossings in Zumbrota, MN as part of their poet-artist collaboration series.