I sit, drawing in breath
(all white puffs and mittened hands)
and shiver
and wait
under a bucket of upside-down stars

their green roots glow
scandalously showing
like seaweed
grown down
among the rotted decks
of sunken ghost ships

(it’s just as silent, just as cold)

but I remove my mittens
my sketchbook balanced on steady knees
in the sparkle-crisp air of a violet geode
with all its sharp edges
and subtle scent of deceit

my hands are ice-pink flesh
in corpse country

(some nights, I hear Hades shouting, commanding Cerberus to heel and stay)

but no, my name is not up for trade
so you can pluck that notion
right out of your head

call me an orphan girl
who broke curfew
to search for ghosts in the gutter-world
climbing over hedges, under fences
like a rabbit but without the lucky feet

just these hands bathed in
silver-and-starlight

bathed in

old names, dead names, stolen names
blood names
names I won’t let rise again
recorded in this sketchbook
beside angry drawings made
in black ink
and lustrous lead
a scrolling treatise
to something that my mother once said:

“forgive them, sure
but darling…

don’t you dare forget”