Reads Encyclopedias for Fun

I am the girl who reads encyclopedias for fun;
I am the undulated reflection that looks and sees in my rabbit’s eyes.
I am the ghosts that emerge from your mouth when it’s cold outside-they fade and away they run
The palpable silence of snow pierced by a chickadee’s liquid cry

The pain that slithers through your arms when you lean on your elbow for too long, reading once more
The westering sun over the ocean’s emerald sheen
The myriad minnows’ black, elusive shadows, unscathed by the wavelets on the shore
The yellow borders of a National Geographic magazine

I am the girl who opens the window when the heat is purring on
The faded red blown on your cheeks in the heart of winter’s rage
The squirrels with great flagged tails that meander about my lawn
The ancient sound of a dusty book’s turning page

The wild squiggly writing so carelessly scrawled
The eternal squinting of eyes by simple refusal of glasses
The prickly feeling of grass shafts poking your back, sore as your mom called
The raucous clamor of the Canada geese as they fly in V’s or in haphazard masses

The words that aren’t said as we curl around a fire
The ladybug’s burnished wings of vermilion
The sun at its zenith striking us, ablaze with ire
Petal-like eyelids that close and the dreams that bloom as I slip into oblivion

I come from her smiles that never change and her umber hair
I come from the sea, from the taste of salt on your lips all wrinkled as dried grapes
And this one’s crescent moon eyes and the echoing laugh as if she doesn’t care
The Nutella that oozes out as we swallow our crêpes

I am the girl who reads encyclopedias for fun;
I am the undulated reflection that looks and sees in my rabbit’s eyes.
I am the ghosts that emerge from your mouth when it’s cold outside-they fade and away they run
The palpable silence of snow pierced by a chickadee’s liquid cry