(no subject)

How Pippi grew up
(revised)




I wrote a song about a child like you once,
with spindly arms that could lift a horse,
hair cursing entrapment
tobacco spit splattered
all over your cheeks.
we made a pact to never grow up
you and I
with one foot in the gutter
and the other next to mine
you skipped the puddles, your right shoe
dry, the other one a mess

When my tutu fit no longer
I bought me a pair of dress pants
that didn't go with my fairy wings
you, with your long legs
just cut up your curtains
into a gypsy-doll dress,
before the head of a prince
you'd give neither hand nor kiss
but a finger

Silently I watched you
across an overgrown border
and when you asked me to play horse
I curbed your head with an adult laugh
blowing smoke in your face



I said "please"
just so
avoiding your eyes

and bribed you with liqueur
and lipstick,
mascara stains, my spilled gut
and the anxious knock of a tiny beak
from my wrist at the side of the bed
into your hand.
Living in a bruise you promised
in whispers, to kick the teeth off your horse
and leave them in my coffee
coarse and sweet.


I return to the Villa alone
where you and I explored
the empty porch, the trees
rustling barren limbs
in the orchard I see Mr Nilsson's straw hat
dancing with dry leafs
and far back in the messiest closet
I find our wings,
their petals - fragile papyrus
their shoulder straps so soft from wearing
and so small.