One night
a father
is out
buying pawns
at the pawn shop,
daughter by his side.
“This place
is just a short trip
from home,” he says.
“It’s the only place to go
that isn’t home,”
she replies.
When he returns home,
he writes about
his daughter’s experience .
He writes that she
tries to run away
because she’s been told
for so long
that there is no escape.
He writes that she cries
when he asks her,
“How did you get here?”
He writes that
she comes from
the north of England,
that she leaves
her passport
in a corner
of her room.
He writes that he asks,
“Where is your mother?”
and she says she had
to leave her behind.
She says
her mother
had started
losing her red hair
in a graceful way.
She says
her mother,
“is a very capable person.”
He writes
the word “capable”
in capital letters
and underlines it twice.