My best friend and I got married 6 times
in my front yard that summer.
Our fingernails *****, hair short and knees bleeding.
The peonies lining my stairs leaned towards us
knowing what love was,
we were 8 and pretending to, toes muddy and noses burnt.

2. The window frames were the color of my mother’s lips;
at night,
I sat on the ledges and pressed my cheek
to cold shattered paint. My dad would ask
why my face was the color of a rose bud sometimes.

3. The tree in the front wasn’t sick
when I was younger.
I cried underneath it
and the ridges reached to me,
still and scraping, taking the pieces of me
I couldn’t handle. My love is somewhere deep in my front yard.