you were downstairs, fiddling with the cobwebs and speaking in Arachnid.
your summer dress, mangled in summer, a tattered fringe of creek stain and acrid
you were there and you were absent.
off in another world,  more Victorian than Akron.
you had two black thumbs that killed plants
that never asked for it.
and a plush toy named ' ask again '


you were downstairs, and i was loitering in fictions i could never sell to Olympians.


shred a tear, mend an eye,


paint fences.