Breedlove

                              –after Toni Morrison

Come with me
                              to the gardens, and we’ll find ourselves an arbor

to sit beneath. There I will teach you all the lessons,
                              how to make something the work of your hands.

Don’t worry, everyone. I know how thin the girl is,
                              how delicate. I have already mouthed every word,

already taken my lungs in hand and softened them.
                              Be a darling, Pecola dear, I’ll tell her. Go inside,

fetch me some clay. Compare yourself to a railroad car,
                              your body to its coal; even I can smell your

innocence evaporating from the stack. You know
                              what to do: follow where it goes, find it in your

hands, how they curve like breasts. Find it in your
                              clay, dark and fertile like a naked woman,

dripping wet, stepping out from the water.
                              As you shape her, remember the beauty,

remember she is yours to create. Anything you want
                              to be. Before we leave, Pecola dear, fetch me your

little white dolls. Dress them up.
                              Light them.