Welcome to Labrys, your student-run art and literature collective of Smith College.

is what you sang to me each night, long before the menagerie
of our family, when Diet Coke cans looked different.

Like so many songs sung by ones I love, your smiling strain squeezed
my hand and heart much harder than the autotuned stranger.

In those days, it was just you and me and the words you gave me, wrapped
in blankets while you hunched over my Little Tikes car bed,

sore with devotion. Sometimes we still fight:
No, you’re prettier, smarter; your penmanship is best.

I don’t know how I got your y’s and g’s, bounding
into the future, so sure of themselves, when it was my kindergarten Miss

who taught me the alphabet. Your letters and your wrists
are much thinner than mine, vertical and unwavering, vowing

that We’re alright for now.
We’re alright for now.