When you asked the question
I wasn’t thinking straight.
As I look around
through an elephant’s memory

of paintings
and scarves
and poems and stories
and tales that would change with every telling
that blanket my weird walls

through all my life…

You wondered if she was creative.
I didn’t give her enough credit then
because I was failing to view
with a lick of the creativity
with which I was taught.

Why was I so late to see?