On my first Christmas,
I learned that the city of
towering cardboard boxes
and the crunchy ocean
of kaleidoscopic paper were
destined for the trash bag,
but the complicated toys
I could not yet understand
were mine to keep.

Just before my second birthday,
my parents came home
with a pink, wrinkled
bundle of flesh, and said,
This is your new sister.
Though, at first, I found her
beautiful, with those pill-
sized fingernails and the
soft coos she kept pushing
out, I was horrified to
learn that my grandparents
were not taking this baby
with them, that she was
not here for my entertainment.
But the envy soon faded,
and I kept a lifelong friend.

At eight,
I decided not to keep
the magenta cast after
the stoic doctor sawed it
loose. It was caked with
doodles and kind notes, but
it stunk of sour milk, and
the boy with the copper
hair had not signed it.
I could not forget his
taunting laugh as I fell
that day, nor the fiery flush
that shaded my cheeks as he
snatched his hat from my
hand, already numb and
quickly swelling with
humiliation.

By eleven,
I had spent so much of a
childhood tripping over
sentences and paragraphs
and essays that when
my book report bloated
slowly from two pages to
five to eight to ten to thirteen,
I unknowingly conquered my
fear, stumbling over a
voice begging to be kept.

When I reached fourteen,
I had seen two corpses
in one year—one painted
as though in the height of
Expressionism and resting
in a casket so cheap it could
have been cardboard, one fat
and covered in smooth
fur, collapsed onto the cool,
indifferent metal of the
vet’s table—and I learned
that breath is in short supply.
But I also learned that
the destination matters less
than the odyssey, so I
tucked my grandmother
and my beagle into my
front pocket like two crisp
hundred dollar bills, kept them
with me wherever I traveled.