Innocents

It's summertime and we have completed our chores. The sky is the sort of blue that breaks your heart and the neighborhood smells of fresh cut grass as lazy bumble bees buzz the tea roses that climb the trellis.

We are in the backyard, licking melted red rivers of Kool-aide Popsicles from the sides of our hands in the shade of the pear tree. Gram would say we've joined the Blackfoot tribe, with braided pig tails and freckled shoulders, the soles of our feet filthy from games of Freeze Tag and Statuary and Mother May I played barefoot across all the lawns on our side of the street.

There is Heather, sprawled out across the bench and there is Gennie perched on the railing, Stefanie beneath her feet in danger of getting kicked. And here are we; three peas of sisters, side by side on the steps. In the fall the Big Girls will go to Junior High and trade in Sardines and Red Rover for Maybelline and Loves me not. But today, we are children. Today we are innocents.