Jeff Kramer

At the Shelter

A mom flops her soggy laundry in the rented dryer while her toddler spins, hums like an agitator. Beside her, a black dragged trash bag is torn open, drooping belongings on the chip-crushed linoleum. In the stained playroom, kids with beaded braids, limp shoelaces wiggle, color photocopies with crayon stumps. Little fingers fling open the kitchen cabinets, ketchup-scented. A worker sits at a cluttered desk behind the closed door, her sighs audible in the hallway. A phone rings; the same pitch as a crying baby.

Outside the lobby
four children and their mother
bang on the glass.