Prove That You are Human

Prove that you are human 

Prove you’re not a robot 

Answer this equation  

Click the called-for shots 

Prove you’ve learned subtraction 

Prove that you can see 

Prove you can distinguish  

Letters R and P  

Prove that you have blood 

Flowing through your veins 

Tell me of a secret crush  

Who doesn’t know your name  

Prove that you are living  

And not a wired mess 

Tell me of a memory  

You wish you could forget 

Prove that you are human  

And not a steel machine  

Tell me your favourite colour 

Tell me your sweetest dream  

Prove that you are human  

As you scour the internet  

Tell me what enrages you 

As if we’ve never met  

Prove that you are human  

State your birth and name 

Tell me what gives you hope 

Tell me how we are the same      

My Mother Had a Lazy Eye

My mother had a lazy eye 

Down the long dirt driveway 

She looked, lingering 

At the mailbox by the prairie road  

For a letter to arrive, 

A word to come from another world - 

Her uniformed older brother  

In combat fatigues  

Overseas, over there  

Her mother, Clara, had buried 

Her first husband and infants  

South of the border 

She soldiered on, 

Married a pint of a man  

Named Harry, 

Took in boarders  

In their farmhouse 

The ‘Tuckey Hilton’ 

Strange men knocked at the door 

With medals on their chests 

Smiles were missing  

As they shrugged at questions 

Heads silently bowing; 

My mother was there, 

Present, but looking away