My science fair projects were simple
and miraculous. Father taught me 
to float a needle on water, to transform
the carnation’s white petals 
with the food coloring droppers
my mother pinched to dye frosting.

After school 
I collected rocks.
Identified with schoolwords:
Igneous, Metamorphic, Sedimentary.
A bluegreen stone 
I named Greenie. 

My mother had a pet rock in her childhood. 
Her pet rock had a cardboard house 
to live in.

I asked her over and over—
But what did you want to be? 
I wanted to be a mother.
I don’t know.
I didn’t want 
to be anything. 
Maybe a counselor.
This satisfied me. 

When I graduated high school
my fourth grade teacher mailed me the letter
I wrote to myself. My 10 year old voice 
strange and familiar. Instructions
to the adulthood
she designed—
god	         wife
mother write

The first story I wrote was about a 10 year old girl
who loved rocks. The story named them pebbles.
She traveled to Arizona to look at pebbles.
She found a good pebble
and put it in her pocket.

The story ended in that pocket.
 

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Prompt
Write a poem that begins or ends somewhere very small—a corner from your childhood home,
the bottom of a flower vase, a cabinet under the stairs, your shower, a whisper, a child’s sock.
Where does that smallness lead (or guide) you?

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Millie Tullis (she/her) is a writer, teacher, folklorist, and researcher. Her work has been published in Sugar House Review, Rock & Sling, Cimarron Review, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere. Millie is EIC of Psaltery & Lyre, an online literary journal. Raised in northern Utah, she lives in upstate South Carolina.