like a small girl's...
		---------------------------------------------------------

		what's a small girl -- anyway, brother?
		brother tell me what you see in a small girl

		my lolita rests open, splayed to page fifteen
		is fifteen a small girl?  is nineteen?
		i've reread the afterword, the intro, the foreword
		it is hard to get started
		now i know it's about language not about a little girl

		the song remains the same and
		it goes "the days of my youth" on page fifteen
		and it could be robert plant barechested in leather
		but it's virtuoso vladimir nabokov.
		how many little girls at the door of led zeppelin?
		what is a little girl, brother?

		all the little girls of the days of my youth
		are memories -- makes accounting easy for me.

		"lucynka" we called her out of earshot
		seems pani lucyna was dainter bigger-eyed
		than the milk-raised kids in her eight-grade class
		she taught physics to the mesmerized

		we loved the little girl so prone to blushing
		even on the blitz quiz days -- we loved her, brother
		we loved our lucynka past our scattering day.

			Marek Lugowski
			30 July 1998
			Chicago, Illinois