FIFTEEN

I remember looking up at the ceiling
noticing peeling paint and water
stains for the first time
and dreaming I was an ant and I could
crawl through that. I remember
looking up the road as it led uphill
from the bus stop and deciding to climb
up the steep forest slopes, my backpack
sliding side to side as I lunged
for skinny trees to get a handhold.
More and more the pages
of the tear-off calendar accumulated
new dimensions. They wound up
rolled into tubes or cones, or folded
into intricate animal shapes,
and the days they represented
seemed capable of similar
transformations. I was looking
through the dog's face,
into Friday night. At fifteen, I felt
like a sculptor who had been asked
to design models of imaginary cities
out of the raw materials of ordinary
afternoons. On TV, Gargoyles,
Batman, Duck Tales, and in the air,
the distant looping of a solitary
turkey vulture, measuring
the reach of her quiet appetite
by pretending there was nothing
she couldn't see,
nothing she couldn't have.