Note: The word 'tessera' used in the poem is from The Hunger Games' universe which are used to describe tokens which are worth a meager year's supply of grain and oil for one person.
The mother
Sits down and cries.
With reddened eyes
She stares at the picture of her dead husband
And caresses his face with her scarred hand.
The sweet memories warm her heart drowned in sorrow
Like the sunlight streaming through the window
From where she sees her children busy in play
And for that brief moment she loses herself in the past far away
Sitting in the dandelion patch with her family
Thinking she will never be lonely
Until the happy voices in her thoughts start screaming
And she sees her children being dragged by the Peacekeepers
To the annual reaping...
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The young, teenage girl
From the porch, keenly searches among the returning coal miners
That walk past her for the boy she admires.
When she spots him the rare feeling of joy surges through her
But just then behind her, opens the door of the Head Peacekeeper
Who begins to survey her body with ravenous eyes
And upon his ghoulish face forms a mucky smile
Moves aside and beckons her to enter
Fear forces her to reconsider
Until her half-dead mother flashes in her mind
Her father crippled by the mines
Her frail, little sister who she wouldn't allow to take a tessera
"Don't let them take me, sister." She had said weeping on reaping day
With one last look behind, she enters the dark house with dismay.
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