I Wish I Remembered More

She would pump her legs so hard and fast that at times,
it almost seemed as if she would flip over the swing bar
and crash onto the rubber wood chips.

Ribboned socks were replaced for revamped skirts
that she would fold higher after school,
and let boys slide their hands up her thighs
in the back of rusted pick-up trucks.

One summer a daisy grew between
the cement creases in the sidewalk
and she watered it and talked to it
and one day plucked it bare-
petals falling like feather tears.

Her bed was stained with snot and tears
but her sheets were clean,
so that at night she would clench them
to her chest, holding tight to lies.