Susan Rae McElheran

Visit from a Seven-Year-Old Niece
for Stefanie

I brought my special blanket because I can't
sleep without it all the time I used to like to pull
its silky edge between my fingers like
this but it got caught on something in the car
and came all the way off did you know
that one time I swam fifty feet from the shore
and all the way back again by the way I'm
the smartest kid in my class and my teacher
had a baby she named Parker Henry I like
the name Parker but I don't like Henry my class
went camping one time and my teacher's husband
came but he wasn't what I expected he was much
much shorter what's your favorite number mine are
eight and three because eight has an S in it and
three looks neat yesterday my sister and I made
clay with flour and salt and water and she spread it
on my face to make a mask and for a long long time
I couldn't breathe.

Susan Rae McElheran lives in on the edge of a cedar woods in the Cascade foothills. She has been previously published in Snowy Egret, The Pointed Circle, and Luna Negra. She spends her time writing science fiction and rafting the wild rivers of the West.
Email her at susanova@gumballpoetry.com.

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