In the Prather days I had a cheek kiss 
on call. My whole body was slightly 
greyed out as I bit my own hand, not 
drawing blood, but watercolor thinning. 
Trying to get White the wrong way. 

I loved to be a pet and I’d stopped waxing. 
Prather took the pages of my paint 
and fanned herself, looking deep at me: 
“You are writing yourself over 
and over again. Why are you afraid?” 

I sat by the window, a conch often.
How can you look at a young girl 
for that long without something scraping 
up inside you? I don’t blame her. 

A year after she left she wanted me 
and kiss to hear Ada Limon read with her 
but we were going with her replacement 
that week. Still, a strong winter gust 
makes me want to novel it out, pay up 
two hundred pages, some cash, 
cinnamon cookies. Some, even
with encouragement, fail to lie.