Borrower

• A hesitant knock at the door.
• I look out, then down.
• The neighbor’s little boy,
• I think his name is Christian,
• Stands staring at his tennis shoes,
• Faded t-shirt ripped at the neck.
• He holds a cup tilted
• At a forlorn angle,
• I don’t remember
• What my mother sent me for,
• he stammers.
• Standing at the blue door
• Of a long life,
• I can’t remember either.
• What did I come for?
• What was it I wanted?

Una Nichols Hynum was born in Providence, Rhode Island. Her work has appeared in The North American Review, Margie, Writers Digest, Spillway, Calyx, San Diego Poetry Annual, and A Year in Ink. She was a finalist for the Hearst Poetry Prize. She has lived in Austria and Germany and around the U.S. as a military wife. “Borrower” appears in her 2010 collection Cup at a Forlorn Angle and is reprinted by permission. Photo credit: Yohana Hynum.