Perspective
When everything and nothing feels small
Grade six was the year of creating depth on paper,
Where distance was a matter of bigness.
Our world was the size of a basketball court and two
Halls, where we mastered pant stains and cliques.
Using only a pencil, make something appear far away.
Rachel drew a highway that narrowed to a point
And a line of trees that dwindled to a horizon
That only she could see. Yes! That. Is perspective.
I hated her. My front yard tree impaled the house
That sat on top of it like an unholy angel.
The art room smelled like minty paste, and that
Is what the rest of us ate — great globs of whiteness.
We didn’t know then that Rachel had found
Her mother in the garage, nor that the diagnosis
Had been wrong. A small error, on paper. A call.
A decision pinned to the map of Rachel’s Before.
Later, she told me that grief closed in like a storm
A burning rain that washed away hope and frailty.
Middle school got small. Promises made her angry.
The only world she trusted was the one she drew.
© Peggy Moss 2021
