Light Work

Under the law
twelve and thirteen year olds
are permitted

to do light work
up to forty-two hours
a week. The majority of working

kids struggled
to read a simple sentence:
“the girl is playing.”

Abigail Carl-Klassen has been published in ZYZZYVA, Cimarron Review, Guernica, Aster(ix) and Post Road. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best New Poets 2015. She earned an MFA from the University of Texas El Paso’s Bilingual Creative Writing Program and taught at El Paso Community College and the University of Texas El Paso.