Reconstruction 11
by Madison Lazenby
I remember feeling like a watermelon,
all green & swollen
with breaks & bites
& breasts before-their-time.
The season started the moment
the cicadas came up for air.
I don’t know when it ended.
In June,
I held the matches
that started the bonfire. In July,
I was given a butcher’s knife
to cut up the fruit salad
for everyone that had travelled
for the barbeque.
By August, boys pushed me into the pool
so many times that I learned
not to scream: just close my eyes,
hold my sunburned hands over
my nose & mouth, wrap my arms
around myself
in case anything fell out,
& wait to return to the surface,
belly first, then head— No.
That was too boring,
too silly,
too little kid,
so my older cousins & street friends,
all boys & almost-men, picked me up
by my arms & legs & threw me headfirst
down the slip-n-slide.