What would I do?

Why, I would have a best friend and go bike riding with her all day
and end up at the creek behind the Gibson House
Buried deep in the pear orchard
where the water doggies dance and skitter across the surface
and my dog, chest deep and soggy-doggy dank,
(Mighty Huntress!)
would chomp and snap them up, protecting us from
those threatening piranhas and keeping safe our
Treasured TrinketsWe would shinny out of our clothes like
young garter snakes shedding our skins and
cannonade off the bank into the cold and merry flow.
Smelling of sun and creek and joy we would swim and
shrilly shriek (quietly, lest we be discovered).
And then we would lay in the weedy straw (waiting cutting,)
and dry off with closed eyes and open hearts
holding hands and content.

Later, after we rode through the orchard (on our way to Paris)
we would end up late at night watching
Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie
eating popcorn by the handful and ice cream by the
painful spiky skull full til we at last had
outlasted my parents and been ordered to bed.

And when I woke in the night, fearful and stiff and petrified,
she would be there
my friend, and breathe on my cheek and
tell me that Jesus loves me.

If I could go back, I would ask only and ever always for that…