we were pre-teen girls 

two dozen in number

Kamp Kiwani was a Girl Scout camp

it sat in the heart of Middle Tennessee

and we came to learn skills 

and earn merit badges

but middle of summer in Middle Tennessee

90 can feel like 103

so we ate s’mores and drank powdered iced tea 

we spent most of our time indoors

and a butch of a girl whose name was Elaine

taught us all about pillow-humping.


No one went swimming or boating that summer

God only knew what might lie in that lake

and the way tempers flared as the temperature climbed

archery classes seemed ill-advised

girls fell from heat stroke all the damn time

a pretty girl 

Kirsten 

had heat stroke by day

and night terrors at night

and Kirsten would let out these blood-curdling screams

though I have to admit we did roll our eyes

if her screams interrupted our pillow-humping.


There in the foothills of Middle Tennessee 

in the heaven and hellmouth that was Kamp Kiwani

we never made candles or sewed potholders 

we never learned to weave one stinkin’ basket 


but the night before leaving,

we pre-teen girls, two dozen in number,

were seated at tables with Girl Scout manuals;

whatever you want, cooking, woodworking,

write it down, they said,

and we left in the morning, merit badges in hand.


We didn’t earn them.

We didn’t deserve them,

and everyone says for themselves what they need–


but our lives must be more than their lemons, I think, 

and pillows more than a place where we scream.