was when the mosquito bites bloomed
across my ass, swells of mucus burst
when the bus bumped the way to school.
Blood seeping through the cotton
of my underwear. The wound
would dry, under-ripe blackberries, staining
the back of my dress. Each time I took my panties
off I tore the bites open. I went to the hospital
three times that summer, my body always leaking pus
slow dancing down the backs of my thighs
glistening like fresh baby oil in the moonlight.
The summer my sister shaved her armpits
even though the adults said she couldn’t. She took
my uncle’s dull razor & marveled at the smoothness
left our Muslim house in a long-sleeved shirt
before stripping down to a tube top on the bus.
Haram I hissed, but too wanted to be bare
armed & smooth, skin gentle & worthy
of touch. That was, until she had a lump
swell to the size of a golf ball from an ingrown hair
& we both landed back in the hospital room, doctors
vacuuming liquid out of our muscles. The last summer
of innocence was when my best friend
gave me the too-big thong with a silver heart clasp
& I put them on under my dress & buried my bloody
granny panties behind the bleachers in the soil the boys
used to touch each other & pretend it was a tackle.
The summer after the towers fell or were blown down
or up & I watched the TV over & over. The people
running from the fire & smoke & jumping
from the buildings, arms out like wings
their bird bodies orbiting the earth, a new sun.
It was the summer the TV told me I was dangerous
& I tried to learn Spanish so I could pretend
I was the other kind of other.
It was the days I memorized the green
leather seats of the school bus & stared
straight ahead when the popular girls asked
where I was from, my skin full of sores
pussing & oozing as the blood fled my body
trying to find anything else to call home.