She writes what she will remember
about swimming and dolls.
Instructions for diving under waves
and conducting wedding ceremonies
for soft toys. Yellow teddy bears
marry small blonde dolls and
pour forth disproportionate babies.
Even stuffed animals divorce.
Baby girl pens serious poetry,
none of the plastic sarcastic ink.
Her first epistle to future daughters
fixes the difficulty in a mother’s eyes.
She notices adult words and turns
over clods of earth as secrets.
Digs up “You don’t say!” into truths
you don’t say. Little pitchers.
The best place to photograph a daughter
is the soft neck curve between earlobe
and collarbone. It is laughter and
causes fits of wriggles. Seven lives
out of nine are giggled along before
she can spell her doll’s name. Catch her
skin quickly before you discover
you’ve kissed a photograph.
- @realnixwilliams: “the seventh life”
- @ernmalleyscat: “Before you reach 100 I’d really like you to do something on this http://twitpic.com/4vu1tq. I’ll tell you the real story then.” (The link is to the photo I've posted here)
- @jellyjellyfish: “Swimming”
- @_camer0n: “ ‘You don’t say!’ ”
I love this photo from @ernmalleyscat. I have no idea what the story behind it is, and at first I thought it was a baby sibling beside her on the step, but I think it's a doll? And I'm not sure what she's doing, but I decided it could be drawing or writing. So I made her a little story from there.
When I was younger my diaries were basically repeats of beach-swimming stories:
"We went to main beach this afternoon. It was quite cold. Leah came too. I dived under a wave."
and tales of what all my dolls and teddies were up to:
"Yvonne married Big Teddy. There was quite the turnout. The bridesmaids wore pink."
These are actual quotes from my 8yr old diary, by the way. Some of my younger diaries demonstrate what children hear, and understand, that we mightn't think they would. Little ears catch big thoughts. I should remember that.
Six poems to go...
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