as a child the bread
i ate was otherworldly
my arms and legs wore a dinosaur's armor
working through the troubles
of my neighborhood's
prehistoric jungles and occasionally
i was a spy in the pantry behind
the worn brooms
keeping notes on my father's doings
building soviet warheads
on the ban saw in the garage.
my skin was a paper lantern
in the night, tented under my mother's
wedding quilt as i hid myself from
the dark, trying to shine.
illegal at one in the morning with my novels,
looking into the mirror at
my transparent face, transparent
freckles, peeling sunburns like
seasons from my shoulders and from
my knuckles. in summer i would
stew flowers in my plastic
cauldron and leave them smoking
in the heat for days to come back
and fill my lungs with their
green perfumes. the sheets i tied
between the in-bloom crab apples
in the backyard are still folded
in our linen closet, smelling of the incense
i burned without permission.
my history is a map of kept
secrets, all the spells of being twelve
i spun with magic tucked like
lockets beneath my breastplate.
i have been everything and believed
everything, drank love potions
on recess, walked the moon
on the sill of my windows, biked
all of Africa - its playgrounds and
foreign backyards and asphalt -
for a slushie from the 7-Eleven
only five blocks over. i was my own
rulebook, adventuring to the sea
unknown by anyone but me
and the pirates and evil wizards
who wanted my wand, my books,
my bicycle with its tires made of speed.
do not tell me i am not two thousand,
seven hundred and forty-four years old,
that i have not been married
thirty-two times, that i will not watch the world
end, that i do not live in a thimble. do
not lie to me at the doorstep of twenty,
once childish and now childish again
in my smoke-worn skin. i will be transparent
again, i will hide my captors well
and break every rule to rescue
prince charming from the evil astronaut
hiding in the corner of my closet
behind my dresses and winter coats.
take up your flashlight and your
pillow cases, take with you needles
and thread, a bag of bread,
your mothers thermos, a notebook.
if you have a magnifying glass, hold
it to me and see how wide my
heart can stretch, around us both,
journeying to the great coasts looking
for the men who took our
kingdoms from us.