Melting in and out,
I hear his heavy step
on the stairs.
I’m milking childhood.
Nature is pretty, and deserves
all her feminine names.
He was a scientist.
He took me to his lab
and showed me the beaker
of liquid nitrogen
where I could lose my fingers.
They’d freeze and fall off.
Mist curled in tongues
and rose toward the ceiling.
A movie set.
Then he turned and left
me at the mahogany desk.
I drew a tree.
Its branches tempted me.
I chewed the pencil’s yellow.
A window darkened to a mirror.
Fear kept me for an hour
in the large wooden chair.
I sat cross-legged, elbows drawn in,
my limbs slipping
through the captain’s arms.