Eth was a dreamweaver, one who could leave her body and step across the stars, in Louise Lawrence’s 1998 young adult novel, Dreamweaver. I read it sometime between the ages of 8-10, and Eth has stuck with me ever since.

Red girl – and I mean girl, for I
was young and could only begin
to imagine you – red dream girl
projecting yourself into me
from the page, but also across
galaxies, to warn me not to come –
You were held in supple halos
of redness. Your smooth hair was long
and now I see it in the hair

of my friend, who is a bullet of
a woman. I see your hair light
until all the hair I now know
or once knew began in this thought.
I remember you so vaguely –
you are the first friend who I lost
and the first one to draw from me
the structures of love. I was young
and now I am young again. Old

is the way you recur to me.
I half expect god to return
in your form. I sat with the books
on the blue grey carpet, felt it
drain the blood from my palm leaving
the impression of weave, and you.
Did my teacher remark at this
sudden silence brought on? Sighing,
I remember you. Please come back