an apparition in our grade one classroom door
obscured save for the halo around your head
. . . must've been the sunlight

playing with the curves of your curls
you said I wrote sentences
that would've made your grade threes weep . . .
and I was someone I didn't know existed before

someone who could write more than curved lines and straight lines
someone who played with words at break
while the other children ate protein-packed sandwiches

between chalkboard dust-clouds and sweeping up pencil shavings
I stayed in for athletics, looked through the classroom window,
searched the oak tree outside for a vision of the painted elf
I un-tacked from a perpetual race on the circular classroom weather board

see, I couldn't run with only one healthy kidney
when I just came out of hospital
where doctors cleaned their instruments in kidney-shaped dishes
my friend, June, still slept in the next hospital bed --
I hoped she wouldn't die the way Maria did --
while I read Jack and the Beanstalk

Mrs Louw asked how I had learnt to read English
I couldn't tell her -- it was something that just happened
the same way I discovered I despised steak and kidney pies
because I couldn't eat my own sickness