Sky columns dressed in black and white
that hid your petal face
on longer days with darker nights
when you were bare-legged and
alone.

Arms and legs that sometimes swayed
from the wooden swing we shared
were marbled by his moral,
you wore it like a straitjacket.

Unlike my freckled self,
wearing only bright cotton.
With an ice cream-stained mouth
and band-aids on my shinbones.