My first great love was a drunk. Her long dark hair
falling over my face. But even that is made up.
My mother wore her hair short. She used to cut it
herself. A shaggy bob that did not flatter. The truth is
my first great love grew up beside me like a wild sister
prone to putting her head down on the kitchen table
in the middle of dinner, saying she wanted her own
room, that she was going to run away. I was the one
whose job it was to beg her to stay. I’d sit at the edge
of her bed and touch the hem of her bathrobe
with my small hand. At night I looked for the big hand
reaching down to me. I waited for a little rope ladder
to fall through a cloud. Why is this my life? she’d cry
but it wasn’t a question and I wasn’t an answer.
