Shrinking by Deborah Henry

For Baron Wormser

I don’t mean that much is what I sense

As I stare at nothing and pretend to look out the window

Pretend not to feel the stun gun; pretend not to hear her tombstone words

Pretend it doesn’t make any difference.

Does it make any difference?

Flocks of paper birds scuttle into a brown tree

The sky looks pencil-streaked. It is cold outside.

I close my eyes and forget,

Drifting among the damp clouds, until you.

When you speak to me, I remember her.

I remember the clown-like grimace I wore

The dead-weight of blunt nods, her knitted smile,

Her needles ping my temples.

I feel sorry now that I didn’t speak out

No one would have cared.

I don’t remember her name.

Fuck you, teacher, I shout aloud.


		Deborah Henry
		SHRINKING
		For Baron Wormser I don’t mean that much is what I sense As I stare at nothing and pretend to look out the window Pretend not to feel the stun gun; pretend not to hear her tombstone words Pretend it doesn’t make any difference. Does it make any difference? Flocks of paper birds scuttle into a brown tree The sky looks pencil-streaked. It is cold outside. I close my eyes and forget, Drifting among the damp clouds, until you. When you speak to me, I remember her. I remember the clown-like grimace I wore The dead-weight of blunt nods, her knitted smile, Her needles ping my temples. I feel sorry now that I didn’t speak out No one would have cared. I don’t remember her name. Fuck you, teacher, I shout aloud.
		Deborah Henry is currently enrolled in the MFA program at Fairfield University. First-class novelists, including Pulitzer Prize Winner Robert Olen Butler, have already provided endorsements for her completed novel, THE WHIPPING CLUB. Her first short story has been published by The Copperfield Review, was a historical fiction finalist for Solander Magazine and was long listed in the 2009/10 Fish Short Story Prize. Other work is online or forthcoming from The Litchfield Literary Review, THE SMOKING POET, among others.
		© Deborah Henry All Rights Reserved