On Feeling Grown and Being Small

The taste of porridge

Hangs in the air

The schoolchildren

In uniforms of gray and blue

Smilingly tug hands

And scrape their knees

And muss their skirts.

What I wouldn’t give to be

The white pit-bull

Sleeping lazily

On the stairs

Who sniffs the air of each passer-by

And knows me by the swing in my step

And the citrus-scent of my fingers.

I wear my hips too low for a woman.

I do not swing them, a dangerous pendulum,

By daylight.

When it rains I wear my chin close to my

Chest

But at night, by the rising and the falling

Of the breath,

I unravel

And find myself very small

And peculiar.