A

The boys in school with dirt-brown freckles
and Yankee caps used to say they looked
like mosquito bites and that no one
would ever touch them.

Cup A/bubblegum straps/nursery rhyme hearts
in the glitter-dipped birthday bag on the
counter of my vanity: This is what I remember
from the first of my "intimate things."

Why adorn them?
Ant hills on yellow-pink skin.

The cancer beast, though, is not particular with
wear he sinks his fang

and when I wake up
there is hair on my pillow.

The boys in school with sweaty palms
stained with girls' telephone numbers used
to say they looked like mosquito bites
and that no one would ever touch them.

I wish they would have told me that
the claws of cancer would.