Snapshots Part I

FAT

Red flannel jumper and a crisp white-collared shirt underneath that always grated the back of my neck. Headband and little shoes that skipped across the four square courts at recess. Lutherans crossed their shoulders when they prayed and I copied quick. We always had pizza on Fridays after chapel. I won the relay race and hung the shiny blue ribbon in my room. I wrote a story about “Ruby the Robot” and my teacher with the short gray hair and stout waddle said it was too long. Carl was a boy scout and whistled when I walked by. It made my cheeks hot. Lyna fell off the monkey bars and bright red covered her mouth and left a puddle in the dirt. She got to go home. I sang a solo covered in gold painted stars and my Daddy cried. The older boy on the black top called me fat during a game of volleyball. He hit someplace new. Tear-filled eyes told the lady with the whistle around her neck who patted my head and kept talking. I knew I would never forget it.

Preslie 3/7/15

Chlorine-pruned fingers intertwined

looking up counting colors in the sky

Green eyes that change with her mood

Honey-soaked

Lilac breeze

Head tilts back in laugh’s ecstasy

She loves cats and the color purple

Can’t wait to be nine

Oliver and Company makes her cry

“Who wouldn’t want a little kitten in a box?”

Denim dresses above her knees

Needed new shoes today

Stop time

Before she dries up and stops seeing cotton candy in the sky

I love watching moods change

the green in her eyes