She would never buy a dress
without pockets, for here
is where she kept little leafs
of scrap paper, all torn
around the edges like seafoam.

These bits of paper – barely
wider than a finger’s width – chaoticized
her life in small ways. They
were the only uncalculated part
of her entire existence.

At any given time, there could be any
number of strips in her pockets. If
she did not fear they would fly
from her fingers at a cloud’s breath,
she might have counted them.

Except that would ruin some of the giddy
mystery of it all. She never knew
all of their contents at once,
either. Some had smudges of fresh
dirt, others had a single word that told a whole story.

But it was the girl herself,
with her large-pocketed sundresses,
that became an entire fable
all
on her own.