"I miss the way I took pleasure in small things..."

The quote is Neil Gaiman's, but also mine.

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The tea party is in a wooded cove to the right of the dirt road, to the left of jasmine-covered lattice.  A plastic table is strewn with pierogies and sugared strawberries, arranged over a yellow lace tablecloth.  Couch pillows spill over the garden chairs.  I am six and the paradise is mine.  I made it.  I made my dress too, out of silk scarves.  I tied the collection onto myself, finding comfort in the cold.  There is a road, somewhere.  A big road with fast cars.  I do not care.  I cannot hear their roar.  I take my teapot in pudge-hands and pour the liquid into flowers.  Their petals open to the warmth.  The ceramic burns, hotter and hotter.  I drop the pot.  It shatters into blaring horns.

Each shard transforms into a “sanspur,” hidden in the soil, burying into my foot.  It is Sunday.  I’m wearing the straight A dress and pantyhose and no shoes.  There are so many.  The burrs are a terrifying itch I cannot escape.  If I fall to the dirt, my body will be covered, if I stay still, they will dig deeper.  Shrieks spurt from my one-tooth-missing mouth; I hear boots pounding.  Daddy carries me to tarp-covered ground, rips the hose off my feet.  Each “sanspur” leaves a spot of blood.

The pain forces fingers to dig deep into the sand of Angel’s grave.  Mama says the eulogy.  A neighbor made the hole with “post-diggers.”  It’s my fault, the emptiness in the ground, the dirt in a pile.  I didn’t feed her, didn’t notice her stop.  She froze in a cage, stashed on a bookshelf.  When I found the dead potato, I wrapped her in the scarves that once made a dress, on a foggy morning far removed.  I cry, knowing she is still there, next to the well, feeding a tree.  I’ll unbury her soon, reclaim the silk, pull back my hair, buy a capybara.  He’ll grow old, visit the vet, die white-haired and happy, gnawing on the wood that Angel made.