there was a time
when we slept together in train cars
and you kissed my ***** cheek
like a mother

you used to say things like
it'll all be over soon
or
no hope out here today

and we were hungry and
lonely until the sun came up
and made sure we were fed
and held a conversation with us.

i woke up in a place where white girls
don't wear socks and she tickled the small
of my back with her icicle toes under the sheets

now the bulge of a small animal
is confronting fear in the form of
one loving glance

i was not poetic enough
until i lifted you from behind and
set you on a cloud

you pushed me towards a megaphone
and i announced you to the world, saying
she's a wild dove

and the wind pushed back
the lapels of my jacket and
you kissed me on the collarbone
without fear and then we
doubled up in laughter
like two souls tossing in hell,
on a grill

parked like a limping jalopy on an amputee park bench.
watching young soft girls sell hard against the boulevard
so they can do smack out back with the white trash boys
who size me up.
hats crooked and backward like their mothers teeth and their own beliefs.
slouching and leaning in their stride like two drunken penguins
shuffling home from the ice bar, fighting over fish sticks--no real threat to any one but themselves.
their drawn out skinny arms with bad backs and barroom tattoos already turning blue.
this is our future--or part of it.
while a young couple breezes by both with their noses buried in iphones.
oblivious to anything outside their happy little bubble.

remember the last great
unpredictable summer
deluded by codeine and cigarettes
pulled by lunar cycles toward reproduction practice
interconnected over coral reefs
before real estate won the forest
we slept untouched on the beach
encouraged by chemical overuse
with our hair tied together in knots
and seagulls flocked on long leafy wings
their beaks pointed out passed the big rubber sun
and i struck your vein with a needle
and you struck my strange heart like a runaway slave
you danced naked in the florida sun
and i stood behind you on tall stalky legs
laughing, getting high like an osprey
sweating into a shrine, wringing out my heart
on the banks of that lazy river in my hometown
when the sun went down we chased each other
through the thready umbrella of vines and pine roots
under the old abandoned bridge
a mile long

a few summers ago
i climbed the water tower
wearing overalls with
four beers and baked in the florida sun

i almost spent the night there
but you saw me from your window
and asked if i was thinking about airplanes

i hadn't considered them
up to that point
but then i was swimming
on a hot tin roof
with paint chips in my mouth

i stood to my feet and flew
like a pencil or a piece of paper
folded into a football
flicked at a 4th grader

and i landed in
your hips
and on
your
kiss.