Photo by Felicia Krolspin the bottle
“I don’t want to be a liar, but I do it every day”
-Tegan and Sara
it’s easier if i show you.
ripe end of summer,
sticky sweet.
a summer ready to be plucked from the vine.
a summer bright on the tongue.
strawberry kiwi. cucumber melon.
denim shorts streaming
threads like wild silk
and an ache
for something mystifying,
ache in the shadows, ache without words—
an impossible want flowering in the chest, the lips,
scrawling webs of fever over the skin
like the mesh of grass blades pressed into thighs calves
the bases of palms…
parents asleep. radio sputtering static.
ribbons of frogsong from the swamp down the road.
lip gloss shimmer that catches on the moon—
honeycrisp, orchid pink, coral and lace.
learning the easy way:
there are some things, in this town,
this body, this summer this circle this night
you just don’t say;
all you can do is wait your turn, braid clover stems,
and watch,
and hope the bottle says it for you.
sticky and sun-flushed, long after dark,
the day’s remains a nectar we wear bright on our skin.
a chance that won’t linger, will soften and fade—
one step beyond this crest of summer, this moment; this next spin
could change everything, or nothing at all.
if the bottle wills it, i’d say,
i’ll try anything once.
i’ll taste anything once.
honeycrisp. orchid pink. coral and lace.
strawberry kiwi. cucumber melon.
tank top, sundress, shoulders arms
hands reaching slow for the glass,
the snap of the wrist that sends it quick-spinning.
fingers spread, the flare of chipped glitter,
open-palm suspended
above each waning rotation
while we wait with quiet reverence, sustained
forever in this sun-flushed summer,
in this one ceaseless second,
this glass-bottled second,
praying to, urging to,
bound to its orbit.
