1. I wanted to live
on light, to drink
from streams glowing
the green-gold of fireflies.
I read too much. I believed
everything we should tell children
not to believe.
 
2. I stood close to the burn barrel
where we lit our trash
on fire and the heat snipped away
a little of my hair, just the strands
along my right temple. I fell
back and the static sound
stopped and I smelled
my own luck.
 
3. Other things
I believed: that I would not fall
when I climbed in the barn rafters;
that finding four-leafed clovers
in the back yard and pressing them
between soft pages would preserve
that place forever; that all animals
would listen to me
like our horses did, puffing
sweet breath from their nostrils,
lowering their heads to mine.
 
4. Water, too, had its chance
at me, the floodwaters of the Sangamon 
carrying me over the drainage ditch
so my feet touched only
snake-like weeds that twined
around my ankles—
the same waters that kept the dark loam
of our lower pasture fertile
so the horses grew fat
on agile grasses.
 
5. Again and again, I open
the door on what I lost:
small farm above the river
on a blacktop road meant
for bikes in summer and sleds
in winter. Huge breathing sky,
red tulips in the bend of the driveway.
 
6. My blood
balloons in my veins, I float
over years like rows of corn.
I lean over myself at ten. I don't
know if I want to give
that child some warning or take
her in my arms and run
off into the fields
where at least
we do not have to fear
because we have nothing
left that can be stolen.

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