She steps off the school bus, walks into the woods, climbs a tree, opens a book.

Her two older sisters will not be coming home for a while.

Her mother and father until after that.

An empty house is not a home.

The branches of the tree hold no fear.

She teaches her dolls the ABC’s, reads to them—they listen well.

A Doctor of Education, she teaches, now, at the University—

comes home to me and to her two fur-children.