I wore skirts
that my mother sewed
stiff skirts that didn’t
billow in the wind.

a docile Scarlet
O’hara in rouge,
but shy and quiet
as a mouse.

my high school crush,
a college gentleman who said
I came from a good family,
loved my skirts,
called me honey.

I drank his words, his
ambrosial affections,
regardless that what he loved
were all of the vulnerabilities
folded into the pleats
of a school girl’s skirt.