A darling girl of three
Violet ribbon cradles golden hair
They fuss over her porcelain skin
Blushing cheeks and baby blue eyes
“Eyes you just want to steal,”  say They.
She crayons pictures of castles
And heroic princes.
Her little dolls are played
Then locked in their little dollhouse

A fair girl of fifteen
Mornings she is taunted and condemned
By the mocking mirror.
She stares
And draws a smile on the vacancy.
Head, shoulders, knees and toes-
Strings attached to all.
Puppetted by the fetters of Expectation,
She smiles, and acts,
And dresses in little outfits
To please Them.

A charming girl of seventeen
Immured little fingers cradle the wiled world.
A Crayoned face fronts the masquerade.
Mangled in tangled strings,
She offers her heart and scissors to a little blonde boy
And cries, Kiss it better.
He smiles and smooths her brow
As his honeyed whispers tear her open
And he ties a heartstring.
He stitches her up with the thread of Promises
Leaving ribbon-scars delicate as lace.
Blueblack bruises blossom across
And stain her porcelain skin.
She shatters
While screaming his innocence.

Thieved eyelight
Makes for a jaded girl of eighteen.

A darling girl of three
Plays with toys
As They toy with her.
Just another broken doll to be.

hello, love.
    one day
       i would like a library
                   a whole library, in our very own house.


I've already started collecting, you know
(things like that take a lot of planning)
books, i mean. collecting books
from second-hand bookstores and thrift shops.
floor to ceiling to floor, the room will have books
and millions of golden threads leading from the pages,
connecting our little corner of the world to the rest of it.
to London in 1854, and Iran in 1990, and India tomorrow.
we can walk into our library any old time
and amble right on through to anywhere.

                     mom didn't like to buy me many books as a child
                     oh, yes, she taught me the importance of reading
                     we read every day, and for that i owe her my life.
                     but we didn't buy them
                    books, i mean
                     because i'd read them too quickly
                     a day or two, maybe
                     and so we used the library

want to know something nerdy?
i was probably the only nine-year-old in the city
to have the library card number memorized,
all fourteen digets.
did you know they max out at 30?
books, i mean.
30 books at one time.

We will read to our children every single night. we will act out the stories; we will help them see that the stories are just as alive and breathing as they are. you can be Peter Pan, and i'll be Frances Hodgson Burnett's Sara Crewe.

and when they are old enough, they will read to themselves every day as a chore, like making their beds or unloading the silverware. hopefully they won't see it like that, like a chore. hopefully they will become addicts. they will sneak flashlights into their rooms and read underneath the covers after bedtime every night.

                              but we'll never ground them for that.
                              instead, we'll take trips to the library
                             and teach them how to dream.

                                               all my love.

One day, we will live in a little house.
                                 The color of buttermilk.
                      And we will plant a tree in our yard.

           There we will savor summer
               Sipping sugary lemonade
With our pinkies up, pretending we’re British.

                                                               Gram will visit in the fall          
                                                To can peaches and make homemade jam    
                                                         I’ve always had homemade jam        
                                          “You spoiled thing,” you'll say.  I know, I know.
                                          She will fill our tiny kitchen with nectared steam.

There we will shape snowmen with kinked carrot noses
                 Until our noses are nipped.
                   We’ll warm each other up.

                       There we will delight in spring and urge the buds to bloom.
                                        “Grow, little guy,” we will whisper.
                                                       There, the tree will grow


                                                             *And so will we.