[Gail White]

Childhood


To shift all day in a zippered dress, then tear
from the brake of the bus, down the gravel drive, and leap
the back steps, slam the storm-door, take the stairs
two at a time, and fling the dress in a heap
on my bedroom floor, ease into my brother's old
T-shirt I'd saved from the Goodwill bag for mine,
frayed shorts, the torn red sneakers my mother had told
me to throw away, slam out again
and jump, both boy and girl, the chain-link fence,
just lie without a purpose in the loose
soft grass of the field, letting a garter snake glance
my hand on its passage, before my mother's voice
reached me, calling supper, and this list
of errands on a notepad, this watch on my wrist.