Sarah Jane Poem by Patti Masterman

Only children have time to count the steps
From one house to another
They think in simple terms:
Janies house is sixty steps away
If I take steps like a giant-
Or one hundred steps away if I walk like
A little bent over Japanese lady,
Walking with tiny bandaged feet
The simple truth was that Janie
Was over-developed for her age,
And she rode a saddle proudly
And her house always reeked of old dishwater
With a greasy undercurrent of spaghetti sauce
And she could be anywhere by now, or nowhere.

One night I dreamed she had died, somewhere far away
In her homeostatic life, safe from her indistinguishing past
She reminded me of one of those pop up targets at carnivals:
Bigger and more colorful, than the things around her
Her most outstanding feature
Her crush, on an invisible boy in Albuquerque
She plotted and schemed for months how to visit him-
It perplexed me, because I thought he was her cousin
Maybe she finally succeeded, vanishing from the
Local phone book forever
Perhaps to tack a 'Mrs' before her new last name
Or maybe to become disenchanted with men forever?
And there's no prize left to be won now,
Not even in scraped together dishpan reminisces.

And nothings more clear now than it was then
As I remember how she'd leave,
Retrace the few steps back to her front porch
If I wouldn't agree to her particular plan
For killing a summers day:
I can still see her figure, as she slowly made her way,
Walking stiffly up the garden path
While I kicked myself for being so stupid
Surprised all over once more
That she'd really do it again.