in bed, with the covers up to
his head. It was a drowning
accident. His parents were distracted,
now they are impacted. She screams

sitting in her wheelchair pulling
out chunks of her hair. She'll not
walk again. And she'll not remember
when she did. There's another

kid in the next room wearing
a breathing tube. He grunts just
like a pig. His father doesn’t give
a fig. He never visits him. His mother,

frail and thin. My son looks the same. But
he doesn’t remember his name. He lost
a big part of his brain. This is how it
is. None of them asked for it.

my street on four wheels
where they don't move
their feet. And screaming like
a banshee, howl. I sit on

my deck and scowl at
the silence they stole. Ugly
trolls at it again just when
I'm billowing in my reverie. They

massacre a memory. I can
not hear the robin sing over their yelling
and bantering. So, I make my way
inside. But I'm still attacked on

all four sides by little people
amplified. I'm a bird in a cage. It just
gets worse with age and spring. I can
not escape the hollering. This was a quiet

street. Now it's a riot of little feet shouting
inanities, calling it play. It's a black cloud
on a sunny day. There's not enough
chardonnay to make the noise go away.

is what we
were. She held up
her end. And I held
up mine all in a straight

line. Talking on
the phone till ten
about music, school
and men. Our

mother's yelling for us
to stop. Was close to
eleven when we got
off. Then life got in

the way. I got married. She
move away. And the books
all tumbled. Guess that’s
the way the cookie crumbles.

ride. All the people outside are
ants. She loses ground in this
dance. Looking through a thick plated
hole at swirls of cotton candy clouds

she bumps around. ****** forward and back,
up and down, side to side, like a roller-
coaster ride. Her quarters are tight and
cramped, strapped like sardines

in boot camp. The food is bland as
the women. And that's all that she is
given. She cannot move; she cannot tweet,
for she is fastened to her seat. All the doors

are closed. The seat-belt sign imposed. She
cannot leave. But she cannot stay. The air
pushed out like Aerosol spray. Her feet swell
like balloons. Her skin is dried up like a prune.

with legs of caterpillar
tracks. She rolls forward and
she rolls back. She's dark
and cramped and armed

to the teeth. She travels
the roads and the streets, plowing
down everything as she goes. She hums
and she zims. Her arm is a turret,

a long, pointed limb. And she'll
aim it at you with a blood cherry
grin. She peeks out at the world
with two slots she calls

eyes and wears her armor
under grey covered skies. No one
comes near her. And no one gets
in. As far as I know, that's how it's been.

are pithy, one word
dangling on the page,
dripping with sweet
intention. In sunlight we

don't engage. And she's
been with me in Paris, in cafes
and museums, though she's not
left her zip code. And I read

her memes, watercolors running
down my screen. I haven't seen
the sun on her face. But I've seen
her children growing up on my

page. And I cannot erase
years of plastered smiles
like cut out paper dolls. I pasted
on my walls. I stich all

her words together and write
'a poem. But I cannot hear
sounds of laughter or bouncing
echoes after, teetering from

her cherry lips. I trip on my
phone, sitting dark and cold
in my purse, as I nurse my lime
and *****. I'll type her another

line, to tell her all is fine. Inside
I'm breaking in shards of splintered
conversation and plastered smiles,
a bookmark of a life wrapped in pixels tight.

and striped shirts.  No dresses
or skirts. Her mother cut her
chestnut hair all off till it
fell on floor in a pixie cut at the

age of four. Girls called her him. She was
short and slim, no curves. They only
had one, no more. Her parents split
up before she turned two. She didn't

wear ribbons or bows in pink. She wore
black and blue in a purple hue.  She did not
laugh and she didn't play. She stayed in her
room till Groundhog's Day. She didn't have a

shadow. She followed in her mother's
wake.  Every night she'd stuff her mouth
full of chocolate cake, curled up in a ball
under the covers. She wasn't invited to parties

and had no friends. She'd write on her hands
and arms with markers and pens. She didn't
bathe. So, the words stayed etched in her
skin. She learned how to walk on needles and pins.