i started tearing up because i remembered
the old table—
the table i grew up alongside,
grain patterns once lovingly traced now coated in a sickly varnish.
i remembered being
small enough to wriggle under it,
able to push my arms all the way out, my fingers reaching just far enough
to splay against the bottom face. i remembered

the colorful pony stickers, a symbol of the first toys
my father would take. i remember
sticking the tiny pink
insignias of rebellion all over,
a collage just for me— the underside's
only visitor. it was quiet there, and
staring back at those characters made me happy to have something
untakeable. my nimble fingers couldn't peel them away after becoming
caught up in the anxiety of earning
a beating for it.

they're still there.
i am not. my father
is, and i don't know if he knows,
but they're there. i wonder

if the dog makes anything
of them. i wonder if she hides sometimes
with the same merriment and tries
to decipher hieroglyphics twice her age.