1. 

I couldn’t help but notice she had four fingers. “A blonde crocodile ate the fifth”, she disclosed. “I was a bad sleeper. My mother tried to warn me. Sleep, darling baby, sleep, or the Cuca is coming to get you, she sang.” Three large stuffed creatures lay on hammocks hanging from the studio ceiling. “Hollywood actresses taking a nap”, she explained. Then she told me she never thought she’d have a heart to drum on. I saw it. It had my name on it. 

2.

I couldn’t help but notice she had four fingers. She didn’t use my name; she called me foetus despite my age. “There is no stopping a colour-dream that surges from the gut”, she said with her hands holding the squeaky gate that led to her back garden. We followed the winding path to her latest flowerbed and began to weed. “Do you have any new words?”, she asked. I didn’t. Her petunias looked insatiable.

3. 

I couldn’t help but notice she had four fingers. I took a tired-looking mug of hot tea from her hand. All but the missing nail gleamed with shellac. “I am the nipple on the cake”, she spoke unprompted, the undersides of her uneven boobs touching the cold, glossy kitchen surface. Like an ostrich, she was fascinating to watch. “What would happen if you stopped painting?”, I finally asked. “I would grow feathers”, she sighed.  

4.

I couldn’t help but notice she had four fingers. “A sacred stone”, she offered as a potential explanation. I felt my eyes ripe with unashamed curiosity. “Details of which I cannot reveal”, she terminated, stroking the tips of my braided hair. Her voice was coarse, prophetic, like that of someone who had already lived my future. “The dragon is the silence in poetry”, she puffed into my ear.