Dinners are quiet with mama Gone she be in the hospital for two weeks maybe more with her jaw wired shut the way it is she sucks her dinner through a straw Some afternoon and visit her with gifts peanut butter sharks plum vegetables even be rude daddy brings flowers Iggy brings shiny rocks when we gave them to her mama try to smile at us but she can't still she looks better than she did at first she was so ugly so broken and bloody and blue I could barely look now her face is more normal except for the wire and bruises and she well enough I asked her what happened. She looked away and said I fell off a ladder she could talk but it was hard to understand her I heard alisa on the phone I whisper heard from her I say daddy for a letter mamas eyes were wet I must have told The police that after I fail I hit my head pretty hard I was in my right mind I squeezed her hand it's OK to tell me mama in the home with some old lady walked by Wheeling in Ivy behind her like a bad actor in a school play now give me some of the shake she's not at the Dairy Queen shake sitting on a table beside her I grabbed it and put the straw up to her broken mouth I could tell it was hard for her to suck on a straw I felt sick for mama laying in that bed unable to eat honestly our dinners at home at real dinners either the first few days people from church but all the casseroles when people ask what happened to mom they told them about the ladder and no one asked in a it's seems to me someone in this town she's going to wonder how mom and Iggy got in so many scraps but no one ever does after a couple of days the casserole still coming I'm the only girl around so it's my job to make dinner but I'm not very good at it my mom never taught me to cook so we ate microwave hotdogs and peanut butter sandwiches and frozen pizza how was your mother Henry Said good I say searching the cafeteria. signs fo xylia she's getting better Henry asked about mom every day today and she went to the hospital explain why I ran away how much is my mama was the one that got hurt She's homesick she says she she's getting but I think she should be back tomorrow she smiled again and turns back to her papers for the rest of the day our imagining cancer and diabetes and lupus I can't think about anything but she's home sick she says she she's getting but I think she should be back tomorrow she smiled again and turns back to her papers for the rest of the day our imagining cancer and diabetes and lupus I can't think about anything butxylia wasting away in her bed Mr. Farley give us an assignment we are to write 200 words about the light septum I pick up my pencil and screw up my face trying to think of what to say I mean to write about light but instead I write about xylia it goes Tina Stonebrook Science poem xylia is a rainbow because of the light septum she has read for her lips which are the prettiest I've ever seen and she is orange because sometimes she's so happy she's as bright as the sun she's signs and shells and part of you wants to hire I'll from her Shannon but you want to be close to her too so you can suck up the warmth Yellow is for but don't want popcorn at the movies she tells the guy behind the counter more butter please until the popcorn is shivered and wet jeans for green for the way she is a blade of grass so close to the earth so fresh and more she would mind me I'm a baby there sometimes knowing or caring what anybody thinks about her she smell flowers in taste honeysuckle blossom and close her eyes to feel the sunshine and blue is for the way she cries when she talks about her daddy for their horn at that cava side home and she have to leave him indigo is because she cares when other people cry Violet is less and that's because purple is the color queen xylia has more colors than anyone I've ever known even Iggy there aren't many people who have that many clothes inside of them look at my daddy he's not real colorful inside and me and blue nothing else just blue Since I met xylia The whole world has leaked into high definition it's like a walk from a normal move into a 3-D that's saying something considering how shitty everything else has been I guess you could say xylia Brown hair save my life I draw an allusion but I left my colored pencils at home or you can't join rainbow with just a gray pencil we missed the probably ask us to turn in our papers he was mine up and shove it in my pocket where is your paper Tiana he acts his eyes squinting behind those big glasses I couldn't think of anything to write about he open his gradebook 0% he says as he writes Mama comes home from the hospital and everything is like a Hallmark movie for our daddy picks her flowers and even buys her pretty necklace that must have cost her money because it has a little shade heart diamond planting my mama see that she smiles and say oh rest and I must forget all about what they did if it wasn't for the fact that her smile is crooked daddy can only keep up the nice guy routine for so long as soon as you're drinking in your lane calling my name is again mama doesn't even cry when he does it anymore he just stares the way he did that morning after daddy broke his brain I imagine she's remembering that
