At the Thanksgiving party I say a
bad word. Stella
covers her mouth, t-shirt
dinosaurs aghast.
Elena shakes her head, but it’s
funny I said, throwing
grapes into my mouth. Purple-haired Polly Pockets exchange
hellos while riding Kirby’s
ice cream cart as we
jump like
kangaroos between beds and I finally
learn the
meaning of
numbers: 24/7,
of all the hours in every day.
Pig-tail paint brushes of golden curly-
Q’s dyed to
root-beer red.
She cried and
told me about the punch-marked hole in the wall,
unseen like her dimples of
Venus.
While the only dimples I have are the ones on my face and her mother