The Minutes
The girl had come before the board
with photographs of her injuries.
The chairman thanked her
for her courage.
Someone asked whether
the allegations had been verified.
Someone else reminded the room
of the good the organization had done.
There were scholarships,
a food pantry,
a Christmas party for children.
The secretary wrote everything down.
Years later she could still remember
the sound of the girl’s chair
scraping backward across the floor.
Thomas L. Vaultonburg is a poet, writer, and publisher from Rockford, Illinois. His work has appeared in numerous literary journals, including Acorn, hedgerow, and Haiku Canada Review. He is the founder of Zombie Logic Press and co-founder of Wolf Twin Books and Zombie Logic Review. His writing frequently explores mortality, institutional failure, and the moral contradictions of ordinary life.