We sit in the small clearing
near the stream, and she tells me
about how she tried go to school,
but her skin kept getting sick,
and then “the incident” happened,
so now she goes to school at home.
She doesn’t really go anywhere
except sometimes to her cousins’ houses.
I want to ask her about the incident, but I stay quiet.
It’s hard to imagine that life.
I flip through the notebook
and in the breeze a few papers fly out,
and the red flyer floats into the air,
sails back and forth, and settles faceup.
Talent show? Malia says, picking it up.
I stand near her,
point to the word singing on the flyer.
You could sing, I say quietly, smiling.
She pulls the blanket
tighter around her face.
We stand in silence,
the water from the stream gurgling slowly past.
She looks at me. I will have to consult with the forest.
She wraps the blanket, which she calls Blankie,
so that a treble clef rests where her mouth should be
and walks off into the towering trees.