All in a circle we sat. My mother had me take off my shoes and brace, flaunting them to the class like recovered booty from the sea. Fortunately, my classmates didn’t shudder or (at least outwardly) think differently towards me. As my own sphere of involvement increased (jobs at fast food restaurants and grocery stores and college), I met more individuals like me, and judgement slowly abated.

from a sprinkling of consciousness,
a perpetuation of art and architecture’s
wicked cadences.

Once she longed for a drawer filled with every color.
Once she stole a toy ring and chewed its plastic nub.
Once her dreams were motionless as summer heat.

in my eyes, eyes
in the black bandit cap of it,
slick feathers on bone.