The Crib

I was seven,

too old for the yellow crib,

but I didn’t care.

There was, after all,

space in the crib for me,

not much for a bigger bed

in the room I shared

with my brother.

Besides,

the bars didn’t so much hold me in—

I could climb out just like that!—

as they kept the world out,

the world that insisted

little girls must turn

into big girls

one day.

Our mommy,

loved

babies.

Then came the move.

A bigger house,

My own room.

My own big bed.

The same bed my brother

had been banished to

when I’d arrived,

so perfectly

a baby.

I, alone in the big bed,

alone in my own room,

alone in the bigger house.

Did I miss those comforting bars?

Strangely, I don’t remember. 

I know only

that my yellow crib,

the crib that held a small girl

close to her mother’s heart,

lives inside me

still.