The ravine down the hill inspires me. Let's wax poetic

My Girl

This is for the girl who yanked teeth out of her mouth

just so the tooth fairy could cough up quarters.

She knew it was her mother’s laundry money

but she didn’t need clean clothes anyways.

She was too busy dancing in the mud, too busy loving

the way dirt caked on her ankles. She loved the way

the water turned black as it fell from her skin.

This is for her.

She’s a woman now.

She told me she once forgot

what it felt like to be a river,

frenetic and flowing.

She forgot what to do with dirt.

She forgot how to bounce it back and forth,

water on rocks.

She said everything is changing

but for a moment she was not.

The rain river water sat still in her

lungs.

A puddle of silt.

Stagnant.

Then tooth fairy girl

splashed her bare toes

into still water

and she told me

she remembered the smell

of rain again,

and the way it felt to

see nothing in front of you

when water dropped on you

like rivers, like oceans, spilling all around you

telling you I’m here. I’m here.

And so are you.