The Girl’s Prayer

Our Father who

smiles at me today

as I pose in front of his Kodak

on crocus-filled snow-watered lawn

wearing my white dress.

Shear belled sleeves

dotted with fluffed velour,

that my mother made

on her treadle singer.

Our Father

gave me a golden cross

nestled in a pale blue box

to mark the occasion

of my first tasting of

the dry white flesh.

I wriggle my constricted toes

inside white patents

grin back to please him

but am watching

the light shifting

through the trees

and longing for my

khaki shorts and bare feet

and the deep red penknife

my hook-nosed grandfather gave me.

Ten blades

to carve my name on trees

to cut bugs in half

to engrave my own flesh.