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’
anntogether 