supply and demand?

she learnt it on the plastic panels

that stuck to the back of her knees

and itched her elbows

and always smelt of bleach or glue

one day they gave a red one

even though she asked for blue

and it didn't even have the duck

with it's bright yellow feathers cracking

in a thousand ways in the corner

how was that fair?

It wasn't as though there wasn't another

sitting right there in the teetering pile

and she could just see the edge

of a yellow bill as plain as could be

but this was that and what she got

and there was nothing to be done in the face of that

so she drug it in the corner

and carefully spread her blanket across as much as she could

stretching it to conceal the fire engine

with it's yellow ladder

that was nothing at all like feathers

and curling in the center to think very hard

about justice and desire and whether she would have

apple juice or chocolate milk today.

Everything I learned

confused me in kindergarten.