You were the anti-glow.
A ball of soot, sunk
in pools of polyester.
You dented the lines of your
encyclopedia - ingested
images of the panther, the puma
and sat somewhere between
black ant and black bear
hibernating under towels of burnt tulle.
You fell off pastel lines
into charcoal smudge,
undersaturated, a pen-test-scribble,
a parachute in negative space
to protect your smoke-wisped skull.
when i was a small child, i wore black to a ballet class.
