She doesn’t like the garden on the wall, where the flowers are without fragrance. You hammer the alphabet nails into her brain. Her little thumb and index finger waver on a hard pencil. She can’t install her mind in the classroom as her Barbie lies uncared at home. Your refrains die in her ears. Her mom’s lullaby lives in her soul. A naughty classmate pinches her. She wants to play, ‘elephant-and-mahout’ with her dad. Your tale has a head and tail, but no soul. An impulse-trimmer your dopey ‘don’t’ is. She wants to sleep in the valley beneath the breast. Ten to three’s an inhuman schedule. Tension termites eat each twitchy day. Only the skeleton of infancy remains. First published in 'The Literary Hatchet' by Pear Tree Press,US and then reprinted in my book, ‘Kanoli Kaleidoscope’ by punkswritepoemspress, US.