I.
I had a best friend
Once
Her name was Gertrude McDile

The first day we met was a Wednesday
I can still recall the white dress she wore that day
Splotchy yellow polka dots
Uncooked yolk swirling on egg whites
Bracelet of keys
Dangling from swaying wrists
Her hair was unbrushed and pigtailed
Stringy yarn
Bumpy construction on I-287
And freckles splattered across her cheeks
Like cinnamon paint splashed
A Jackson Pollock masterpiece

She was beautiful.

II.
When I think of our days together
I can almost hear her laughter
The frosty pools of sound
And I can almost smell her hair
The lotus moon
The pastries they sold in the bakery downtown
The oranges she always ate

Oranges were her favorite fruit, I think
I remember us sitting in front of my building
On a summer day
Sluggish and
Eating the tart nuggets
The edge of the sidewalk
Our royal throne and
That’s where we sat
Watching a ribbon of smoke
Drift from Mrs. Bridget’s fifth floor apartment
Yells in broken English to her son
For burning the chicken, again
How we laughed!
Doubled over
Stuffing our fists in our mouths
To trap the laughter behind bars
Gertrude snorted out an escapist seed onto the road
Which made the juice flee from my
Laughing mouth
Blazing a trail of bittersweet fire
From tongue to throat

Almost choking.

III.
She loved to read
I was more of a number-type person
But she ate up books
Ravenously
Like she was a shell and she needed to be filled
With a snail or an oyster
Or a pearl
I never understood stories and imagination
Clamoring words came into my head
And then right out
Vapor condensing into droplets of confusion
Dripping down to my toes
But we would lie on the
Purple rag rug in my room
Garnishing the cushions and pillows
With our small bodies
And she would explain them to me

She said that
Authors were like gods
Because they scavenged from the dumps piles
Of things forgotten
And from those they crafted
Their own tempos
Their own rhythms
Their own glorious worlds
Worlds that you could almost live in if you wanted
Fairy-filled, goblin-infested, alien-invaded worlds
Worlds where the sun is the moon
Where a dream is a nightmare
Where a nightmare is a dream

How do you live in a bookworld
If you already live in this one? I asked
They kidnap you, she said
They capture you in a cage
Of pages and words
And they carry you in their arms
To wonderful places
And when you get there
The cage falls away like
Layers of onion

Then - she paused -
You are free to explore

How do you get out? I whispered
Sometimes, she said
You don’t.

IV.
Whenever I talked about
Gertrude McDile
To my parents
They would tsk and say
What a silly little girl
What silly games she plays and
I didn’t really understand what they meant
Gertrude was my friend, after all.

V.
I never found out where she went

On my eighteenth birthday
Gertrude McDile disappeared
When I looked up from the cake
After blowing the candles
She wasn’t standing where she used to stand
Or singing like she used to sing
On October thirds from the past
After all the family and friends left
I tried searching
Under sagging couches
On the streets where we used to play
In my room with the purple rug
I even opened a few
Dusty books
To see if she was hiding
In one of her beloved worlds

And I went to the dumps
Thinking maybe maybe maybe
Maybe, I could forage forgotten treasures
Like those godly writers and

Maybe, I could make a world where Gertrude McDile still existed.