one girl, missing.

Where o where has the little girl gone ?

Empty seat and tousled bed
Shake their heads, it's worrisome.
Let's worrisome.

The doll's hairbrush just smoothed her hair,
The pins were dropped- now she's not there.
No, she wasn't just hair.

A little lamp has toppled down,
The pen and exercise-book frown.
So small the girl, so big the frown.

Window is open, door is shut,
She cannot go out, cannot soar up.
She tried, but she didn't go up.

for D.

They reach a circle, encircled by the path, walk away in different directions, meet again on the other side, at the same time, sometimes even in step, which she loves. which reassures her.

Sitting there, he talking of mountains. She asks how people live without beauty, the utterly external kind. He says they don't, don't have to. "That's why photographs- I want to make them see it, the beauty in ordinary, real things." She watches him, both still, his chin against the light. She wishes she could.

They walk back in complete silence. Her footsteps irregular, a slow, deep, crunching on crusty tarred road; his steps light, regular, firm, with a whisk of jeans-legs against each other. She wonders if this quiet is uncomfortable- She cannot be, she never is.
What can she do ? He is beneath her skin, embedded close to the bone.