Milk, Milk, Lemonade

I shared a Milky Way with Mandy, which
we scoffed in all due sticky fingered haste
and joy. The sugar rush made us giggly.
Her face was open as a daisy; hair
hacked into sun blonde wildflower petals
by her mother’s sewing scissors. At eight
years old, she was my secret girlfriend, who
I hoped to kiss in soppy moments, though
I denied and shunned her when with my friends.
She wore a faded cotton dress, more grey
than blue – like her transparent eyes – its hem
turned up; a hand-me-down, too large. She wore
it with a gamine ragamuffin style;
the unselfconscious haute couture of post
war poverty. Its straps kept slipping down
to reveal the gawky angles of her
shoulders that flustered me as much as school
lessons in geometry. And I glimpsed
her button nipples, which she pressed in turn
while reciting a naughty rhyme, before
lifting her dress with a flounce and twirling
to show herds of Bambis gambolling in
cartoon clone confusion across her bum.
I felt a frisson then that I still feel
now; but it is complicated. What was
innocent is tainted by taboo, so
must I find excuses or explain why
I remember her so well? Her laughter.
Her open mouth, with chocolate melting
on her tongue and the glisten of dribble
down her chin. The sweetness of her breath as
she whispered something I will never tell.