Inside my body was a strawberry

stain. Sturdy & sweet then suddenly 

overtaken. My body choked out everything

which had once populated my life.

Summer had no curfew. Flowers died,

pools dried up & were used 

differently, seeds sprouted all over me 

more magnificent than the mulch of

any teenaged son. Their teeth loomed

in the periphery waiting to be 

dyed. I was cruel yet I 

cried over everything: my sun-slapped

skin reddening, the roasted pig, gulls

fighting over a piece of bread, 

how slow days took to grow 

dark. I was a daughter plant

squeezing the soft earth too tightly

trying nightly to will myself green.

I ripened so fast, laid out 

on a napkin—now beach towel,

now picnic blanket, now soiled sheet— 

the violence of it never ceased

to amaze or deplete me.