The Girl Grew and Grew, Her Mother Couldn’t Stop It

The girl grew and grew, her mother couldn’t stop it; it terrorized.

    What would the finger-dance do? Kindergarten art a buffet of 
markers,

gluings of stuffs to seasonally-keyed paper, Elmer’s pools drying clear.

    A stapling and testing of cylinders versus spheres versus cubes

for kinetic and entropic possibilities, stuffing balled newspaper

    into paper-bag dragons, two sweet silver elephants with heads too small

and trunks too long, situated off-center, snuffling flowers. And silver rain.

    And 16 silver hearts stacked vertically and strips of masking tape, colored

in reverse rainbow. Unnamable tendrils diffusing to scribbles. A bird.

    Another bird, more rain, peace signs, a horse with sideways-flowing mane,

and knowledge: that the sky’s full of black-struck Ms and Ws, drifting

    clouds; that her kitty cats watch sunsets; sky doesn’t reach

down to meet the earth; mother shrinks to the size of a penis.