As A Child, I by Jean Liew
As a child, I hid under a writing table
Draped over with an old vinyl sheet
The overhanging green edges afforded me
A prospect beyond the opposite wall
Then I was a little Lady calling for her nurse
To serve her honeyed tea and sweet lullabies
Here was the cellar where I hid in wartime
Peeking between slats at the falling bombs
I saw Caesar's triumph in the street below
And here, I was buried with my sister in Pompeii
The tabletop was my treehouse; my waterfall
Vantage point to places so, so far
Reached by a box-canoe and a racquet-oar
And they were sometimes not those either
This, I played as a wooden xylophone
And I spun wool with turns on a bicycle wheel
My headquarters, my island, my own --
And when I grew too big to exist in this world
I laid it not to rest but carefully wrapped it
And carried it with me to each new place
So it can grow and spread like vines around
And hold them too in altered, imagined views
Jean Liew is a rheumatologist and clinical researcher in Boston, MA.