Every year she’d bring a basket full of mums in colors good enough to eat.
She wore a gingham apron when she worked, blue and white squares across sturdy cotton fabric worn soft by decades of washing.
Pixies keep what’s theirs.
A very small girl stood on top of her dresser, knocking on the jewelry box as if she expected an answer.
At first, she thought it must just be her mind playing tricks on her.
Betty found the little crown in a bed of zinnias, of all places.
Which color should I draw with?
Imperfections are what is beautiful.
It went around and around, never stopping, never slowing, that carousel the color of night.
We clasped hands under the big green sky, in the sticky quiet that comes before the storm.
