What did I expect to see?
An actual creature, a monster?
Instead, I see her,
long black hair, the deep brown eyes.
On half her face, the side usually covered by her blanket,
the skin is red, bumpy, scaly,
almost ripped open, the skin around
her eye swollen to twice its size,
making her eye hard to see.
I hear Martin’s voice in my head,
The creature…, but I ignore it.
She throws her arms around me,
buries her face on my shoulder.
I hug her
the way I like to be hugged when I need it.
I’ll never get used to that, she says.
It’s like the only solid thing,
the only safe thing,
the earth itself
is coming apart.
She jerks back, like she’s forgotten something.
No, she cries, no …
She tries to cover her face and
searches the ground for Blankie.
I follow her to the stream
where Blankie floats
at the edge of the shore.
She picks up the sopping blanket,
and together we squeeze out the water.