trees like curtains separating us from the world.
To be seen is to be magnified like the samples
of algal water we bring back to the classroom.
The boys wade into the marsh in their rubber boots
armed with test tubes and pH strips.
I’ve never looked straight at a bug or a fish.
I can’t look straight at anyone.
I’m hardening like dirt drying at the water’s
edge where someone falls in on purpose.
Where someone drags themself out,
clothes soaked and sopping, boots spilling water.
As a girl, I know it’s good to be small.
I say Oh! and Wow! with gamine surprise.
When I walk away, my heartbeat burgeons;
a tadpole turns into a frog.