In the summers before we were women,

                       we snuck through the walls with the farm puppies.

       We found hips with the youth chased out, an

             old kitchen still ripe with genesis and dust.

                         We found our mouths could touch without kissing

    and pulled at the ticks blooming on dogs’ bellies,

               butterscotch jewels toughening with their blood—

  guns and puppies and my gold colored shoes.

           I pressed my ear against one body. Its shining skin

                       with the ticks hanging off, black mouth and

        steaming tongue, all that goddamn humming

.                 In supermarket tanks the dark lobsters would pile

     their crowding bodies on top of each other and we

                     would wonder if they even knew that the others

        were alive. We brought the rifles, but forgot

           to clean them. We forgot a lot of things. Someday,

   I will finally understand why Slim shot that dog.

       Why we opened stalls and found mother spaniels

             with silver braces cupped deep inside their cheeks.

     We pushed our mouths against the warm backs

 of those babies. If you go down deep enough,

            we thought, you eventually have to get emptiness.

   We kept our eyes open, girls and puppies and

                     the sore muscles of God, licked our canine teeth.

      Then we shot all of the branches from a tree

            that was already dead, and I showed the puppies

   little bubbles of air inside the metal shells. Our lips

                  pressed together but we never kissed, even once

.         We were too busy looking for all of those bullets