Books are enchanted. Books help me travel. Books help me breathe.

The whole world's safety depends on the words of two men who are enemies.

Seventh grade. Eleven years old. A bookworm-misfit with long black braids, childish white socks, pointy pink glasses, and no courage for flirting. It's doesn't take long to learn that I'm ridiculous.

It's a sight I plan to remember, this spontaneous unity when faced with disaster.

Is there any way that two people from faraway places can ever really understand each other's daydrems?

At the steamy train station
in New Orleans, horrifying signs
above drinking fountains
announce:
COLORED.
WHITE.

Confused, I drink out of both.
Why should it matter if a stream
of coo, refreshing water
pours
into
my
mouth
or
another?