“Is everything in your mind so grim?”
No I have a happy place
It belongs to this little girl
A little girl with a rag doll she calls Nancy
Maama told her that name
It’s a nice name
She likes to carry Nancy around with her
Sometimes Nancy gets lost under the bed
The little girl likes to watch the clouds
She thinks about the clouds most of the time
When she stares at them long enough, they seem so close
And sometimes they run
She likes to squint upward and watch them chasing each other
And sometimes they scare her a little
Sometimes they make angry faces
When she gets bigger,
The little girl wants to climb up the hill
Up there she can touch the clouds
They are so close up there
She looks to the hill everyday
She will grab a handful of the clouds when she gets there
She wonders if they will be cold or fuzzy
Then she’ll stuff them in her mouth and have a taste
With that thought she skips about all day
I watch the little girl
The little girl in whose shoes I can’t fit anymore
The little girl who doesn’t know yet that one day Nancy will be gone
The little girl who doesn’t understand yet that daddy drinks too much