Underwire Ash

My fondest childhood memory
is from the summer
of two thousand two.

Colorado was in a record breaking
Water Sucking
Water Rationing
severe drought.

The days were laden
with thermometers reaching
one hundred and five degrees
in the northern city of Boulder
where it normally would be
ninety five

All the boys in my neighborhood
ran on the pavement and sidewalks
in shorts
barefoot
no shirts.

All of the men
worked on cars
Held up by cinder blocks
or grilled hot dogs
in the same attire.

the trees never sweat as much as we all did.

but all the little girls and women
beaded sweat in their summer dresses
and loose basketball shorts.

I asked my mother
Why I had to wear a shirt
when the fabric
stuck to my skin
and made it itch,

I asked my mother
Why I had to wear that summer dress
when the boys could run through sprinklers
with only shorts on.

She told me society said so,
I was six.

She told me she didn't agree
but that I had to wear that shirt
or she wouldn't be allowed to be my mother anymore.

I was six.

Later
she told me that I could wear whatever I wanted.
As long as I was home.

I wore a pair of green basketball shorts
no shirt
every day
for two weeks.

I put on a shirt
to go to the neighborhood playground

But would come home
and dance to the Talking Heads with my mother

I would jump on the couch uninhibited
as she smiled.

a couple weeks later
I went into my backyard
and found our fire pit
with my mother's charred bra in it.

the album cover for The Talking Head's Little Creatures