black and white printed while she was whole
her image remains with me
    pressed between one of those silly plastic stand-alone frames

back then the instructor’s reasoning was sound
    though not reason enough for me to listen
my mind had been cocky in odd places
    while other rooms stood vacant
    dubious of direction and all things covered in sugar

my first clay ‘masterpiece’
    masterful in her crying face, her sense of doom
the glorious hand I’d made with my own unblemished one
the dense clay hand gripping the thick clay cloth
    a modesty I’d fashioned to cover her exposed breast

the thoughtless secondary hours of building her up
    only to have her existence cut short
    for my not listening
the heaving ‘masterpiece’ ruined beyond repair
dense lumps into the bin, hauled away
the evidence of her brief existence
    trails me from place to place

years onward caught in a morning like any other
the childhood sun moving across her face, her hand, her prison
I stood beside the studio window
    silent and breathing
    listening at my dead ‘masterpiece’
    still trapped in that silly stand-alone plastic frame

I’d never done that before
    the listening

I never before offered to that little girl
    hiding in those vacant rooms
    a map to redirect her eyes
    the permission to deafen her heart
    from hearing only my mistakes



image above captured this morning in my studio
– taken as she stands in all her high school ‘confuddlement’