Rotary Dial

by Sajidah AlSaihati

There's a child on the swing-set.

The woman considers strangling it.

Like a dastardly thing it fidgets, rocking the swing.

Its small hands just barely hold the chains, a grip so frail a tap would cause a fall.

Legs dangling off the edge of her seat, the girl's eyes remain glued to the soil.

The woman tugs her by the hair and throws her off without a word.

The girl only grins, like a star exploding in black radiance.

The heavens found her worthy of this injustice,

such that she only sits in the child's place.

And she is fully aware of her illness,

of bitter water and intemperate fever

this enormity of want, this endless mortality,

for which it does nothing but intensify her disgust.

Oh God, she can feel the dirt falling over her head,

the asphyxiation brought upon by years of negligence

And she would've sunken in the girl's arms if only she could touch it

fallen embrace around the child, head in her shoulders

a mutual agreement between the deplorable of men.

The child is four, six, ten, but it's always there

—suffering with her.

It wants to be seen, which is hopeless, because she doesn't want to see it.

Never leaving, never growing.

No matter the times she’s killed it, it returns the very same.

Dear Warden of Solitude,

Shall I die of anger or being unloved?

Only the next morning is the swing empty.

She doesn't think about that child again.