Though her teachers taught her
to read & write,
it was her parents who taught her
to love it.

She had spent her childhood
pretending to be invisible,
only to learn in her adulthood
that the magic cloak of invisibility
was simply to be homeless.

Dad was a roughhouser,
Mom, a reader;
their child had the best of them,
for she could throw haymakers like a girl—
better than any gamer’s—
& could appreciate the stories
that packed sucker punches.