(Mount Carmel, Kentucky 1988 Age 10)

Do you remember that summer?
Summer of ‘88
The trees bore no new saplin’s
Maw’s switches broke,
So we hid all the knives in the house.
God peeled the roof back
and we slept under the sun.
Johnny left that Spring,
and took his pedophile hands with him.
His fingerprints began to fade
from our young bodies.
Bleached by the Willow Tree,
we’d been baptized,
--Born Again--
of pond water and mud pies,
the summer of ’88.
Cinder block back steps,
boom box blastin’,
Tiffany singin’,
I think we’re alone now,
Doesn’t seem to be anyone around—
It was true
the summer of ’88.
Daddy came to visit.
We shot hoops out by the barn
till the sun went down,
then ran through the hay field
fillin’ our mason jars with lightenin’.
At bed time he said he was gonna buy us a
Mockin’bird.
Tuckin’ us in
and kissin’ our cheeks,
Sandra Dee smiled,
The summer of ’88.
Do you remember how the honeysuckle
swallowed up every fence on the farm?
Those tiny sunset trumpets,
hornin’ out their song
got all the hummingbirds a dancin’.
Did I ever tell you
I held one that summer?
A hummingbird.
An accident, really,
it flew right into my hands.
I felt its wings kissin’
my Life and Love lines.
I’m sorry I didn’t show you--
I wanted to,
but in that moment I felt a whisper
through my bones--
hummingbirds weren’t meant for catchin’,
and they weren’t meant for keepin’ either,
so, I let it go.
That summer, because I was ten,
I got to ride the Setter
like the rest of the Big Kids.
You’d walk behind me
stompin’ out clumps of Red dirt,
buryin’ any exposed roots.
Funny, isn’t it,
how that hasn’t changed?