It begins with a plate
peeking out of the mud,
white porcelain, still whole,
painted with deep blue flowers,
the crick welcoming china
among its stones and sticks,
the water having
crested and departed.
Childhood continues with
a banana-seated bike,
purple, and names
that broke my bones.
Words, unfamiliar sounds
from other tongues splashing
the cerebrospinal fluid
of my lonely, floating brain.
Looking back begins with longing,
a mosaic of broken tea cup shards
glinting, gorgeous in post-rain sun.
The otherings of girlhood
graffitied over with time.
Uprooted disarrangements
float through tributaries that are
still me, embedded and entwined.
As first published in The Closed Eye Open, Issue VII