Knees scraped along bark as the lion tree
****** me into its embrace.
My mother hated that I climbed trees.
My mother hated that I climbed trees
with the neighborhood boys.

The sun stirred in the sky,
clouds melted apart,
and there was fishing
there was biking
there was climbing—and lots of it
there was fighting
and, of course, too much pretending.

The sun followed me,
spinning in time,
hands covering its marked face.
Puberty came
and with it my curls—my genetically re-enforced femininity.
Goodbye, hats!
Hello, headbands.

No longer looking but looked at,
baptized in my own hormones,
I stand on the roots of the trees
that no longer **** me in.