Just Enough

She walks there with the hope of a child, yet she is a woman of sixteen.

She knows fear; eats with it, sleeps with it, shrugs it off daily.

She slips through the crowded market in search of just enough; she has almost that much.

She brings home the just enough, prepares and shares it, and today it becomes just enough for them.

He comes and goes; works, maybe. Hopes a little. Stays away from the men and their ideas. He brings her some; it’s more than they had before. Some is enough.

They don’t talk about the future. Tomorrow is farther away then Now.

Now is complicated and simple at the same time. Now rakes across the embers of their life sorting the live coals from the dead and all the time they scoop the hotness together to keep themselves alive and warm. Now demands; screams; tortures them with choices.

They don’t care. Their children are hungry. They need more than they have but today they are together and they have just enough.

The Mr. Pepsi soldiers drive by and wave.

Her family will go to bed tonight and tomorrow they will all wake up, alive; together.

For now, that is just enough.

©Tom Kinton, 2003