Gold Leaf Girl

She brought spiders in my room
I was just starting to get lonely
Cleaning only dust from the corners
My neat, but far from living, room

She brought rain back into fashion
And flooded the pantry, where she slept

One day she went to forage
And came back swaddling a hedgehog
Its nose and feet cosied in gold leaf
Its bristles brushed down neat
She cried when I told her to take it back
And flooded the rest of the house

I never knew her to drink
Except from birdbaths

Her names were Scandal, Hypothesis, Adventure
And she chose them all herself
Those were the only words she knew, I think
But she knew a lot
She just didn’t like me enough to tell me
Before she left

But I forgive her quiet footsteps
The fact she always made me jump
And look over my shoulder even inside
The gifts she left in endless shoeboxes
On neighbors’ driveways, gold leaf
That blew away when they opened them
I forgave her gold leaf pranks
The price of replacing all the floors
The gurgling sound of her tears
And the insomnia that ensued

When she left, the spiders stayed
But every day she was gone
They spun gold into their webs

It melted in the sunset
And they started again