Childhood

Four dark girls with pencil thin legs
and neon shorts followed their mother
like ducklings to one bus from another
One was sucking her thumb
One was sucking back an Orange Crush
One was licking an ice cream
that dripped down her closed fist
The last was licking, enthusiastically, a red sucker
She'd never get to the stick, though
Not even with her verve
They weren't a loud bunch
nor did they act out like
some other bunches might
They just followed
with their oral fixators
in their neon colored outfits
on their small dusty-handed-down jellies
beneath their brown pencil thin legs.