How to tell she's extraordinary

A quarter abandoned
On the dirty grocery floor
She Smiles, bends

And grasps her bounty
Tightly
In a nine year old fist

Rushes up the aisle
Skirts the gumball machine
A predetermined path

To Customer Service
Where she slips the silver
Into the donation box

1- Colleen on Mar. 7 2008

that is such a sweet image. Extraordinary indeed!

3- Anstey on Mar. 7 2008

beautiful snapshot. Love it! Couple of points.

S2, L1 - I'd cut the 'and'

S2 L3 - nine-year-old is hyphenated, i believe (by the way, i love the way you can picture this as her having a fist for 9 years. To me it ads to this image of this little girl who fights for everything)

S3 L2 - I wonder if parentheses might really give a nifty aside affect, at once de-emphasizing the gumball machine grammatically, but drawing attention to it both visually and by adding that semi-conspiratorial editorial tone that mothers have

And, by the way, she gets that from her Mom. I happen to know the woman a bit, and she's absolutely extraordinary.

4- Emeya on Mar. 12 2008

Children are amazing, for sure. I friend told me that in a small school in rural Mozambique right after 9/11 the children put out a collection jar for the victims. Worlds away and poverty aside. Isn't that beautiful? I think that this is something that should be cultivated in young children. They have such a strong sense of humanity. This is a lovely acknowledgement of that. I think Anstey's suggestions are worth considering, just to tighten up a little.

-Em

5- Sinnaminsun on Apr. 23 2008

Nice. The clipped-pace of your poem matches the visual I get of her running to her destination.

6- U668857 on Apr. 25 2008

I really like the economy of this and its direct precision. There's next to no extraneous verbiage - you make each word count. It's also quite touching without being overly sentimental - sort of restores your faith in human nature almost ! Nice piece - Rgds.,Alan.

7- Norm on Apr. 26 2008

I really like this just the way it is. It reads as unpretentiously as she is in life.

8- Celticlion on Apr. 27 2008

I love this sliver of a child's simple joy in giving. I could actually see her little grinning face as the coin went "plink" into the box. Super write....C