july was flat-backed on
the concrete patio and
pool-toed we lay across
the towel spread; it was
a pop song in e flat and
lifeguards with crossed
legs, and the kids ran
in minnow circles while
all the girls languished in
tropic-brown lotion and
dove in wrist-first when
the radio dragged back
to distortion; by the time

the afternoon cast itself
across the river in spine-
shaken laps, in wooden
splinters from the new
dock, our swimsuits were
dry and the sky rumbled
bruise-empty. through the
woods we countered cicadas
with war whoops, hot flashes
of spray-torches, until the last
scrape of lamplight on the
cabin walls before we blew
out the citronella candles

I had not thought
it would be so very
difficult to sit and
peel back the aged
fruit-skinned lives
we planned out for
one another in the
blood-grapefruit
slow drench of a
late summer night
where I drowned in
the moon and you
laughed among the

stars, but in the cool
expanse of idolatry
I encircle my face
with a black ring
smear and crunch
salt in between my
toes to try and feel
the beach again but
somehow the next
morning your smile
across the table is
not the same as it
was when we met

there are
crossed
ankles
splayed
over the
radiator
painted
gull-white
she turns
pages and
chews her
cuticles he
cracks his
neck and
his glasses
slip she just
reaches over
pushes the
bridge up his
nose she is
loose woven
ethereal and
soft in his
apartment he
clunks back

to the kitchen
turns off the
coffee their
room is still
singed at the
edges he likes
small things she
does and asks
where her right
hand came from
when she lets go
of his neck and he
likes watching the
sun crawl off her
back in his living
room as she leans
over the sill to
check out the
window the hem
of her shirt at the
curl of her spine “it
might go on like this
all day” she says and
he doesn’t have so
much to say anymore

on carousel
dreams we
swing sing
and live all
free-legged
translucent

long ago I
remembered
who called
you who and
where we
began, but

tonight
beneath the
canopies of
summerlight

(where it
is never not
ice cream
season)

we are all
new and
all over
again I am

indebted
impassioned
immolated
inundated
and only a
tiny bit
infatuated

(only loudly
enough for
you to hear)

charcoal thumbprints made mansions in the stars
where moon-faced women spiral, spit, and whir-
the cold-faced songs that hover at their lips
are nothing, next to what we thought we were

throw off your shirt again and let me see
what you’ve been hiding from me all the while
something in the sound of my skin on yours
speaks volumes of the space in every mile

the sombre cliffs, the dithered waterfalls
stowed up in the mountains, up in your heart
have been toe-tracing, wandering away
since losing you will soon break me apart

if you sing me to sleep again you might
remember who I am come tomorrow
it took me far too long to figure out
your attention could only be borrowed

so few are truly moved by you today
this is hanging on to a bond long dead
it’s been a while since I was one of them
my company’s just the blood in my head

and full-breathed windy days you never slept
are now whipping tornadoes in my mind
sorting through the leftovers of small towns,
I realise you’ve gone and left me behind

there’s hardly anything to miss tonight
the east wind breezing through this dizzy sway
if wishing you weren’t there did anything
my writing would have gone a different way