In the story ...

In the story I’m reading, a girl turns twelve. 

On my twelfth birthday my parents gave me a notebook 

with a glossy black cover and a small, slender fountain pen 

that had rainbow spots embedded in the dark blue barrel 

like flecks of light. I was already a poet, as they knew. 

 

I still have the book, worn and faded now: several years of 

youthful poems. I still think some are pretty darn good.

my childhood notebook

a diary in verse — a friend,

reading it later