When I was small I thought up a girl

called Celery, green-skinned

and orphaned, I took good care

of her, watched her sleeping through

a nuzzled crack of doorway, saw

her black eyes catch me in

the act. Celery is not a little girl’s

name, you must mean CECILY

they said and Celery winked, lifting

up her skirt to state a craze

of leafy petticoats, pressed

and crinkled as a savoy cabbage.

We enjoyed the bathroom late

at night, the bathtub just a dark

idea in the corner of the room

and a square of pocked sky

luminous on the wall. Seldom

have I found such bright hush

as then, with Celery. She left me

years ago, went skipping back

to Victorian soil; I imagine it’s quiet

there, softly creaking like an old chest,

mud breathing slow under wooden

wheels and ragged children. I grew up

not green but red, like a throng of mad terns

beaks wide and squawking. Things might

have been so different if she’d stayed.