Quilted hands
Felt-soft hair
      born on wisps of yeast
      piping from the brewery

She leaps down the stairs
too light for harm
      a cloud of blue dust
      with penny eyes

I hold her
like she’s a dry autumn leaf
      I bathe her
      with paint

She flickers
when a change comes
      between outside
      and in

Meredith McDonough lives and works in St. Louis. Her poems have appeared in Linebreak, East Coast Ink, and Stone Highway Review, and are forthcoming in RHINO and the Cider Press Review. She is a graduate of the Creative Writing MFA Program at Florida State University.