My friend and I passed our
notebook between each
other, the cover creased
with our longing.  Its image,
stars in their eyes, pink-purple
cats.  Our subject, nature
dancing with narration’s
promise: transcendental.
“Dawn is when light/rises
up into the sky,” I said,
defining the ninth-year limits
of my language.  (Sky: half
an easy rhyme.) This poetry
delivered us, potential armed
with fuchsia pens, to a writer’s
conference for elementary
poets. Opening the chapbooks
of other words, we leaned in,
and tendrils caressed us. 

-- Maria S. Picone