Elizabeth Akin Stelling’s most recent poem to appear here was I Came In With My Eyes Wide Open published as part of Contributor Series 11: On Birthdays in July 2012.
#32
By Elizabeth Akin Stelling
We never had money to go to the movies or the circus. If you complained about that then you would hear stories of how my father, during the great depression, rode his found broken and flat tire bike for miles through the mud to deliver goods his mother baked for a penny. My father gave me a choice between popcorn and riding the train around the local park one day. My stomach won, and I never dropped one popped kernel. When I saw the train I cried, begging daddy to take me for a ride. He never gave me another cent my entire life, I never asked.
