Sophia at Fifteen Months
by E. Laura Golberg

Sophia knows
life is hard
and arbitrary.
Big sister
will push
her small form
from the favorite chair
or off her new-found
upright balance.

Sophia’s made of strong stuff
taking displacement
by getting back on her pins
with dignity
and returning, in her eyes,
to useful employment.

At the playground,
she learns to pull herself up steep steps inserting a tiny finger into a tiny hole for leverage.
She’ll shoot down
the big slide
fall on her side,
battered a bit.
Then she’ll start
again the painstaking re-ascent,

the savage plunge
followed by delighted laughter.
Then the brave legs
take the body,
relentlessly,
back for more.