A Life Cut Short

by Quinn C. Dodge
(USA)

A sunny day
with August green
a mechanical mishap
a tragic scene

A father's scream
to a gawking sky
A mother's pleas
Save my child

Cars passing by
the world doesn't stop
Yet all the while,
a frozen clock.

Bodies in shock
voices weakened by fear
waterproof napkins
to ebb endless tears.

Eleven years,
intangible pain, invisible wounds
scar what remains,
when one leaves too soon.