Body #6: Nude with Bowl

I can't begrudge my childhood. A jewel box with three Chinese coins, a maple tree to climb, a bowl of begonias. The game of who can flex their elbows backwards always won by girls. In my hands a sparrow a corpse. Milk and a plate of peas to cry over. By Labor Day my feet callused, soles hard as stones, unmarred by hot tar. A hand, a foot, a hair's breadth of danger. The seawall I bicycled over, a bandage for my ribs. Science a rubber dollbody melted in the sun. Of mouths to feed I was one of two. Arithmetic the number and ages of the family up the street. Anatomy a swayback mare. It was hide and hair a toss-up. China was tea and a fold-out map. Aspiration someone else's mother found floating in seaweed. Tongued obsessively my teeth fell out and grew back. My ear a tin horn, my feet soft after boys. Swayed by trees that spelled follow, I rode with, and I rode alone. Time changed. The dark was darker, the woods closer, folding and unfolding its wings. In city light, faces erased, the street light's buzz no bandage. I learned to count on change. No child, but a bowl to cradle, in the crook of my woman's arms. The ashes of the girl I was.