Ann Hutton

As a girl, I once crept
on my belly through dense foliage
between garage and fence, reached through
to a neighbor’s expanse of strawberries—
the patch from a rabbit’s-eye view was vast.
I stole, then ate the evidence of my thievery.
A thousand red molecules of sweetness
exploding, juicing up my mouth—
Crawled backwards, as to go further meant
tangling with a mass of rose brambles
the sort that, like children, do best when left to
grow out of control, the kind that makes you
dizzy with their scent.
My stealth was a game unwarranted—
they weren’t home, this modern couple
who drove a pink and gray DeSoto, but
had no children. She looked like Donna Reed
before Donna was invented.
Not me. No TV-perfect child was I,
wanting nothing less than random adventure
and exploration. After the binge, I used
a rock to write my name on walls of ancient
wood inside a smelly garage—
space for one car, dirt floor. We fiddled
around in there, did private, nasty things
then—

Out the door, gravel alley—Run!
We’ll get snatched! Screeched to a halt

to pick lilac leaves— props for games, with
fond memories of recent purple bundles
splayed on a table. Their fragrance intoxicated
me, made me late for school.
I stole them, too, and sniffed them
like an illicit drug all the way,
then gave them over to appease my tardiness.

Rain! on hot, tarred streets
and puddled lawns. And mud—thick,

malleable like God’s original stuff, full of sin
that I would gush my hands and feet in,
later to be washed, purified. But not
until we’d formed and patted and baked it
into shapes, as little girls should do.
But after—climbing trees, shooting guns,
Escaping on our bikes like true gender criminals,
straight out of the neighborhood until
some parent, worried, drove around to find us,
reeled us into an American-made car, and
put us away for the night. Lightning bugs,
crickets and humid sleep crowded by
visions of wild animals, flowers.
Was it a dream, or did morning glories scream
on porch vines, announcing the new day.

Up and out! a screen door that went
Bang! wood against wood. We’d capture

characters from last night’s television, race
to a swingset shouting “Annie Oakley” or
“Dale Evans”, thus claiming an identity.
Flopping upside down on trapezes,
flying in swings so high the frame rocked
dangerously. Or two clothesline poles
strapped together, balanced across a dog
house—no dog present, we rode those ponies
up and down, across the plains. I even
rescued myself from pretend outlaws—
only to confront real dangers like
sidewalks that came up and slammed knees,
and teeth popping out at hopscotch to be
saved to bribe a fairy for money. Extortion.
Who was that child so good
at getting away with being bad?
Memory drifts into a fiction of an era
that could not last. I hold it sweet—
a story like strawberries still delicious,
ripe and lustful, throbbing in a grownup mind
of a nicely settled adult woman.