Our Treasures She keeps them in colored boxes and ragged calico drawstring bags. There are tigers carved from stone, elephants made of emerald glass, wooden beads, polished copper coins, and every unusual button gone missing. She has horses: spotted, broken legs, bent tails, a Pegasus missing wings; all too small for anything save pretending a world in cupped hands. Little moments, with these little things, build such big dreams in her little eyes. I watch, and wish I could be her friend. Not the steady friend she turns to see in my eager Nana-understands-smile, but a twelve-year-old-Shirley friend, who can share the dreams, and still have time to live them all. Together. Shirley Alexander © 2009
