Dimensional

(Published in The California Writers Club Literary Review, 2022)

The empty chair dominates
Mom—stolid—serves cinnamon
toast, cocoa, to her remaining child.

One day a baby girl, transplanted,
takes the place of the son
cut down by cancer.

The adopted daughter adapts,
shallows her breath, strains
against fibers of dreams

spun for her brother.
The parents swaddle her
in remnants of frayed hopes.

She grows upward, inward.
Wins at pick-up sticks
with her spider fingers.

Slips through the margin between
door and frame. Climbs a sapling,
perches on a pencil-thin branch.

Summer—Atlantic City. She wraps
willowy legs around a striped
yellow, red, blue beach ball,

rolls into the ocean, tumbles
in rough, salty waves—but the sea
returns her to warm sand.

Her big sister scoops her up,
brings her back to family,
shares pink cotton candy.

The parents ask their youngest,
“What do you want to become?
Teacher, Doctor, Scientist?”

“I want to be Dimensional,

to stretch to the sun, scrape
rainbows in the sky, thicken
my trunk, widen my crown,

harbor hundreds of songbirds.
Flutter my leaves in the breeze.
I want to flower and seed.”