It was easy to give you everything then.

That summer I went to the beach every day,
a walking S with a stubborn tanned
belly. I swam for hours, floated
on my back for the first time—
we were the same in the ocean.

I walked late at night through town,
down the pier. Across the water, the Boardwalk
moved with people and lights, the air smelling
of seaweed and cooked grease. Sometimes people
kissed in the shadows beside me,
but I don’t remember wanting anyone.

I hated your father then because
I’d never loved him. Sometimes he called
and we yelled for hours, and it seemed
I was already ruining you. How could
someone be born from so little?

Despite what you already know will happen,
that I will leave and try and forget you,
that I will love you only from guilt for years—
try to see me as a girl
who held her belly and danced alone
in her apartment. In the streets below,
homeless teenagers spare-changed and screamed
at my ass when I walked to the park.
And a magnolia tree offered its cupped
flowers until they browned and fell—
and I believed that I was somewhere beyond harm.

—Wensday Carlton

from Fear of Summer