You could see her if you looked through the window,
long-haired girl on a canopied bed.

Pink bedclothes, girlish furniture in white.
Small drawers full of talismans and pencils.

One hundred strokes at the mirror.
You could watch her in the warm private world

of the pink bonnet hair dryer, fortress of solitude. 
Daydreams after homework. Stories about girls

trapped in books on a shelf between bookends.
You might catch her peeling gold roses

like fingernail polish, like frail sunburned skin,
in a pink robe, in a puffed plastic cap full of hot air.

Looking in, looking back
I’m not sure she likes pink, all that pink

that her two parents bought her.
Once Mama dressed her in red.

Red faded to pink under windows
without curtains. Always someone watching.