I miss you.

Winter mornings

Cold lace skin and hot red heart

Snowflakes stuck on mittens

Building hollow castles and

Melting in the snow

Face flushed, brushed by the

Falling sky

Winter nights

Blankets heaped

Warm cocoa memory on teeth

Packed all around with snow

Drifting off to sleep

Once more

Summer days

Sticky popsicle fingers

Sinking into the sky and

Running

Tearing up the emptiness

Delicately

Summer nights

Stars hung from strings

When just to be under them was

Enough

Covering up the quiet with

Soft sheets

Autumn came, like always

But the crispness to the air was

Missing, left behind in the confines

Of whatever place

Was holding you

Slipping in and out of days

Listlessly

The brilliance filled our teacups to the brim

But now it has been drunk

You could never have said,

I miss you, too.

Mom said

girls are meant to be seen, not heard;

it was a lesson she had to learn

Dad said

guess you were built for comfort, not speed

curves slow you down in the race to succeed

men are all dogs, they go after bones

giggle and jiggle and you’ll be alone.

Mom, I feel fat.

We should talk about that.

I mean,

I would like to talk now but I’m running late

You look really nice, have you been losing weight?

Mrs. Smith, I’m a nurse on her rounds,

your sallow daughter weighs eighty pounds

How can that be, she looked fine to me.

Let me talk to her please.

She says she’d like to talk now but she’s running late

besides,

She says girls are meant to be seen, not heard.