I’d sneak off to the creek—the one my mother knew

Was plagued by polio.

Its bank was my nest where I gathered my twigs &

Sticks, my thoughts and...

The cold gloomy days magnetized me.

I was 8 years old and believed in

Most everything nobody told me.

I sat cross-legged quietly overlooking

The water and believed in God and all

They said in my Sunday pamphlets.

I believed in 5:47 p.m. the hour my sister was killed

By a drunk driver. That afternoon—

I ran all the way home

In my leg braces and floated up to sleep

In my iron lung, pills in hand. Higher & higher

& higher into the black.