Sheared from a school year’s wholly-worn jeans:
Momma-made swimsuits, sport shorts, or any
all-purpose bottoms we needed for heated,
play-laden days and dusks. Chopped and ragged
above our dirty skinned knees: a frayed fringe
of loose-hanging threads once close-woven denim.

Lighter, longer, summer’s strings unraveled
inch by tattered inch until our sunburned legs browned,
and our backyard sprinkler game-time ran out.
Everything came undone in that unstructured season
sooner or later. Fall’s brass fixtures buttoned up
our fun, heralded winter’s coming covered pale skin.