I wanted to write.

I’d wanted to write

for a very long time,

and I was doing it.

Telephone pranks came into being

with the anonymity of the dial phone.

It was an ordinary day,

an ordinary walk home from school,

I remember

what it felt like to be small.

It was a favorite pastime,

lying on my back on a couch or the floor,

I was born into a world of stories.

How fine to be asked on a date!

Seventh grade,

and I, the new girl,

out of place,

awkward,

shy.

The teacher told us we

were made of atoms.

I used to worry about birds

as I watched them

trundling through the blue.

Seventh grade,

and I, the new girl,

awkward,

out of place,

excruciatingly shy.

I was seven,

too old for the yellow crib,

but I didn’t care.

When I was very young I wanted to be “a poet.”

It was our last dance recital,

our very last.

She told me,

though I hadn’t asked.

I grew up longing to jump from a plane,

to float to the earth

beneath a

billowing

parachute.

Miss Christian, my first-grade teacher, had a pockmarked face.

A steamy summer afternoon.