Hedgerows

Girlhood was the homes we made 

in the bushes at the bottom of the playground, 

where the branches reached out from tangled

masses like welcome, open hands. 

They wove themselves into rooms for us, 

to pretend, with minds unmanned,

 that we housed ourselves in hollow hedges,

 living off the land. 

It was picking up handfuls of dry cut grass

from the pile adults told us not to touch. 

It was running back, little birds to a nest,

 and throwing it down in the dust. 

This was a floor, a bed, a place to lie down. 

A sanctum, a place that is just. 

Here you're real, an adult, independent and kind.

 A host. A guest. Here you trust. 

Come in, come in, hang your coat on that branch.

Want a juice box? I swear it's no fuss. 

Please. Please. There's a stump over there,

sit back, rest your feet, eat, you must. 

Community was the trading of leaves, 

the spa that opened on the hill. 

Half a dozen girls sat ready for work, 

cross legged with time to kill.

We made our town and we lived there, 

currency of leaves and flower crowns. 

Defended the trees, standing together 

like a pack of feral hounds. 

We'd sit in classrooms, sit and learn, 

real walls, chairs, tables, lights. 

But the teachers, smart fools, 

would never know what it was really like. 

We were girls watching hovels of branches and dirt, 

there was a town beneath their nose.

Grass stains rubbed deep in our shirts,

mud on all our clothes. 

Down in the playground, where the world was slow, 

we made our imagined homes. 

We defended the trees. 

We traded in leaves. 

We lived in hollow hedgerows.