The cumbersome rails of memory run easy in the small dark hours. In the still black, the boxcars filled with bits of a life swim up, rolling past like a silent film.

The watched bee stings the back of a tiny hand, unexpected pain blooms, maps the beginnings of fear.

Skipping behind the quick haughty grandmother in her clicking Italian shoes, echoing in the sick painted and yellow-lit cement hallways of her realm.

The slow walk in a new dress, the new girl, assessed by the needle stares of a sixth grade class.

The boys and the boys like men, wrestling and roaring, kicking doors and toppling vending machines.

Sand in the sheets scrubbing sunburnt skin, lips tight and salty, dreaming summer bodies and vague danger.

Gulping seawater under a darkening sky with only a small girl for comfort.

Puppy in the drainpipe, pony in the creek, heat in my hands, smell of life and leather.

Remember remember remember.

Safe laughing women in warm kitchens, hands working dough and hot soapy water.

Dizzy twice on filthy street corners, two cities, faces, chapters.

Bitter dramas over forgotten sins and candy girl cocktails.

Hot thrilling shame of victory, stop looking at me.

Drunken manboys in sad late bars asking who is your beautiful friend, who is she, who?

Scratchy dress and rhinestones, blowhard company in Atlantic City. Not me, never me.

Destructive intimacies and those that saved me.

Remember, remember, like dreams, like stories layered to build a girl.

Build a girl with bits of nonsense, sun and tears, blood and guts, sand and candy cocktails, ponies and wrong dresses on street corners with blowhards.

In the small dark hours with the whisper of almost silent sleepers, it all falls away. Filthy cities and dying puppies, bee stings and sad bars.

Only this, only me, perched on the rubble of memory, packing it back up carefully, sending it down the smooth rails.

Memory shrouded by sleep or sunshine, whichever comes first.