Ditto

Ditto

She had black hair

and long, dry fingers, purple

from the ditto machine

pages and pages of purple

blanks to fill

questions, answers

letters, numbers

and all of us

blanks to be filled

with her purple ink

her incessant cranking phss-umph,

phss-umph phss-umph, phss-umph

we were already full

of oatmeal and snakes

dandelions and candy cigars

prairie wind and kites

full of wonder and fear

we couldn't have known

why she believed we

were the enemy,

thirty-two and alone, her need

to be loved

her fear of loving

but had she smiled

while distributing

her twenty-two copies

to the twenty-two desks

where forty-four eyes

searched for something

familiar, human, safe

we might have smiled back