Emma

14

Summertimes Past

i sing the songs of the neighbor kids
the ones who taught me how to scream
and told me to paint my face with brown mud
it was in those days— with the soles of my feet red with dirt
that i received my true education

in those summers we were still young
our bodies were covered with mosquito bites
and our knees were scabby and swollen like cherries
our mouths were yet to learn how to kiss
we only kissed our mothers
we were new to this world—our minds still untouched by the yellow fingers of adolescence
and in those days time stood still

still—there was always night
soon the girls with their new breasts
and the boys with their fractured voices
stopped screaming—they were too big for the shrieks of children, too old to play in the dirt
now they painted themselves with a new kind of mud

and now i wait—
crouching in the sun like a frog
my belly hot and lonely
my feet have not touched the summer grass in years
i am listening
waiting for a new generation of neighbor kids
to begin to sing our songs
again