Page 124 of The Black Flamingo
elaborating on every story
with painstaking detail.
She never spoke to me
like this when I lived at home.
Absence makes her heart
grow more . . . communicative?
She says,
“Anna really misses you.
She sleeps in your bedroom.
Why don’t you call her?
Are you coming home soon?
Maybe for your birthday?
Maybe we can visit you?”
“Not for my birthday,” I say.
“I have an essay I need to do
and I’m feeling the pressure.”
On the morning of my birthday,
Uncle B calls to say he’ll take me shopping
when I’m next in London.
I don’t tell him I’d rather see the stars.
I left my telescope at home in London,
handed it down to Anna.
Mum and Anna call; together
they sing “Happy Birthday” to me.
Mum asks what I have planned today.
I say I don’t have any plans; I have
too much work to do, so much reading,
and two essays due next week.
It’s so much harder than high school.
I miss Daisy and not just how she helped me
