It was the summer
neighborhood boys
noticed breasts blossoming
like pale, pink hydrangeas
inside our blouses
and hoped to unbutton
the women in us.

The summer the woods
down the lane was jungly
with thick blackberry vines
that scratched our bare legs
when the four of us, in only
tennis shoes and swimsuits,
trekked to Klicker’s pond
without the boys.

We splashed and giggled
in the murky water,
emerged screaming at the sight
of leeches freckled on each other.
Just then, the boys, who’d been
tracking us, appeared
and volunteered to pluck off
all the dark untouchables.

When Andy found a bloodsucker
clinging to my left breast,
a pulse of tiny petals rippled
to the top of my head.
It was the first summer
I bled and bloomed
in the hand of a boy.