Poetry
Girl Playing with Toy Soldiers
by John Gallaher
They're going to the store. They need things.
It's late. It's almost six o'clock.
They have to take a bath later,
and will they float?
Will they float
in the shape of the house,
the black and white house?
Later, we'll clean the patio
and we'll get a silver star.
Later, in a photograph of the patio,
where I'm almost walking
like I used to.
My hands across the walls. My hand
across my cheek.
In the other world,
it's what makes me stand there,
watching the air,
and the false color of that. The false picture
of a girl in the woods sleeping.