Back when she had Raggedy Ann red carpet and
baby brothers in their cribs between sky
walls next door, she delighted in
her big girl room.
She’d sing from her depths and swing around her
bed posts. She was
still too little to untrack
hollow closet doors, incline them, and
slide kid bros from bed to floor.
Yet ideas grew during afternoon naps to become
bridge-crossings on boards leveled toward
her toddler sister’s bed (for whom she
prayed so life would always
hold joy). They built
castles with the new bed but
dreamed in the other until baby
sis turned
nine—too big next to teen sister’s
third trimester belly.
None grown among them, the infant didn’t come
home. After the
hospital, big sis slept alone,
ceiling-staring and seemingly idea-less,
lost for the rest of her childhood.
.
