Burying Jump Rope Freckles

As a little girl
I was so ready to blow daffodils
into the Earth’s core.

But more importantly,
I felt that the world welcomed
my child mouth against its adult hills, ditches—

mountains.

Even the crab grass
was older than me, but I wanted to kiss bugs.

I wanted to soak in
the timeless things;
cicadas. Mulberry juice.

Oxygen.

--

As a little girl,
I fed carrots to the neighbor horses
with my fingers staunchly through holes
in the electric fence. Shock only
bit me once, but after nine-volt vemon
sunk down into my stomach, splashed across my pelvis,

I left the mares alone.

I buried the carrots
near the tulip grave, where Angel’s bones are. Her ears
must be stiff with death now, her ribs squeaking
in the corners from embedded tire rubber.

I cried when she died, but I was angry
first.

They should have put her back in the pen.
Of all nights to T-Ball! While I was swinging and missing, I could have been saving
my puppy! They should have told me
right away, instead of letting me crash past the sandbox,
fear ballooning under my feet like a sore filling with pus, quickly, only to find
her brother barking loud and alone, as if to warn, ‘no, don’t come here! There is only lack!’

They didn’t mean it, I said as I put the carrots under,
as I tucked
  them in.

I blew those words into the world,
a small sentence unheard
by the dead
   or the living. It was more for me.

“They didn’t mean it.”

--

As a little girl,
when I crossed street corners while it rained
on my shoes and the ground mirrored its inhabitants,
  that

was bridging
     continents.


From ditch to road, I conquered.
  And even Mr. Shoe, who lived a mile away in that little
village where our bus picked up a fourth grader named Lex,
who had hair like corn silk and would probably fall over
    if you fanned her too hard— anyways even Mr. Shoe

lived right next door. A mile away. Distance was space
  I was bound
                              to cross
                      sometime.


--
   
   And even though I have already buried the carrots,
and even though the world is a bit more massive now—
  (There are seven continents,

over thirty something states I have never been to,
   billions of people I will never know,

flowers I will never even realize
exist.

Oh, and to top it all off,
   I am graduating high school
soon enough)  I keep that faith close.

The faith
  in the leg’s God made me.

To keep waltzing
    (or scaling)

  ravines.