In a long Victorian styled dress little Connie waltzes from person to person hugging their waists.  She gives me a lingering squeeze with her porcelain colored arms. The crookedness of her teeth does not stop her from flashing a smile with every embrace. She is such a loving spirit for a third grade homeschooler.  A fountain of youth is in her blue eyes and I hope for the sake of the world that growing up will never remove her wild joy.

You fool, that’s my wooden leg!
Homeschooler thrown
into public graveyards
without training wheels,
getting lost in the burrows of daggers
and edges that exist beneath sharp smiles
of baby dakrats trying to fit in.
Let him scramble for humor,
in the moment,
while a mirado black warrior
drinks blood from his thigh.