OverTheRainbow

your birthday was halo-lit nights and cigarettes in sugar cakes—

melted icing smeared over the tips of flames snuffed out in the dark.

you asked for a songbird, said your lungs were burnt with apocalypse dust

I got home from work at nine o’clock and decided that I would go down, through the gate, across the creek–socks mushy all of a sudden in my Adidas sneakers–and into the meadow for a walk without stopping to see anyone.

I'm six on the living room floor -

the pink album the pink album I chant -

dad puts the Supremes on the record player, the jacket handed to me -

pink, with three of the most beautiful women I've ever seen -

Remember the girl?

She’s in second grade,

Maybe

Blond brown curls

Blue green eyes.

She’s sitting on the top metal pole of the fence

Chipped green paint

It's summertime in Montana, and because we ranch, because animals and plants and the weather are on their own time, I sit around and wait a lot.

When you get an eyelash in your eye

a wish will fall in with it

each one holds memories

stained with the makeup of your life

if the memory is tainted

with trauma, fear, or pain