In the last days of school, the first days of summer, we pile into a car. All these people I'm not close to suddenly become my best friends. I'm contented to go where they drive, my head hanging out the front seat window into the distinctly summer-tinted air. We pull up to the city gardens with a pizza, dancing to The Strokes and the beating of the world's heart, alive around us. I make everyone clover crowns. He is the King, his thoughtful brown eyes outshining his careful smile. I am the Queen. One and Another, the Prince and Princess he with his pleasant, measured voice and her trills of brilliant laughter. And the too-old senior tagged along for who knows what reason, is the Jester, loathe to wear the effeminate flowers above his ears. We climb things. We somersault. We throw loving insults up to the wind like kites. We hoot and holler at the blue blue sky and the koi fish in ponds, dancing along the stone borders. So close to falling into the algae.
We sing the summer in.
The Jester has never known true right from wrong, he is learning to live on his own, with the scars on his arms and face. He is not welcome at home anymore. The Prince is moving back across a world into the arms of a now unfamiliar life, nothing waits for him there but the promise of his next powdery high. The King's mother has three months to live, all we can do is wait. The Princess and I, the Queen of the wild rumpus, finally lay down to count clouds.
We have nothing left.

Driving to your apartment
and waiting
for the call
“your daddy’s leaving”

and then you have to go across town
to your old house

might ***** your roommate while
we’re waiting
for you to come home

something like 2am
sopping in tears
when the call came
“your daddy’s leaving"

silence

I don’t think we believed,
but now we have to.

I wanted to be your same color
living in a world where back roads racing,
fathers up-and-leaving,
mothers smoking in the house with the baby
is taken into caviler stride-by-stride.

**** your hat a little farther to the side
and tell me this all don’t matter.
But it comes at you in vivid splashes,
when you try to sleep under
the lumpy comforter
in the bed that I made for you
while you were in the shower

And you call me your beautiful angel,
in stark washes of fluorescent lamplight.
You’ll take the pills to sleep at night
and I won’t
I’ll just lie there pretending
until you wakeup late and groggy
And you leave me.

There we sped down the highway
leaving town, windows down
going north.
You drive like a bat out of hell, twenty above the speed limit
one hand sneaking up my skirt in the suicide seat.
Can’t keep your ****** hands to yourself.
My head tilted back,
Ignoring you a little bit
to watch the light from the western sun
glint off your new rosary:
semi precious stones and Jesus
dead and ******, oversized in bronze.
Oh, our resounding love
and church qualified sin.
It’s a little too much
how the juxtaposition of our separate lives
crash together in the summer,
when it’s too hot to wear your
penguin suit
little black dress
cassock.

I’m not bitter.

God your car smells terrible
running errands Sunday afternoon
windows down, driving fast
on the north side of town
feeding you peach rings while you drive
listening to the Lady herself.
Smile your sharp-toothed smile and
I’ll remember mine
Darling, I want you to drive off the road
so I won’t have to tell the world what we’ve done
You and I both know
these burning secrets at the bottom of our hearts
eventually come out to see the sun
Shining in our eyes on a Sunday afternoon

He planted the heel of his foot
on the paper declaring my D+ in math
didn’t notice didn’t care
not with his hands on my hips
up against the bedroom wall
even with tears hiding behind my eyes
this is more important to him
this is what he comes for
so I keep him a little longer for myself
to forget, evaporate into
a girl wanted for something
a little less than ladylike

And we lay there under fast moving clouds
sometimes-revealed stars
in the reclined seats of my mother’s car
outside of the other boy’s house
hands behind our heads
let the wind from the open windows
blow the humidity from our foreheads

I find you so handsome in the weak moonlight
the strong bridge of your nose standing out
from underneath your shaggy hair
the bright whiteness of your teeth
as you grin, amusing yourself with words

Our conversation is give and take
Neither speaks more or less than the other
give each other time for thought
in a delicately held balance I find comforting
just like when we were so young

The days when your mother drunk dialed
and your father tried as hard as he could
when you clung to me and my words
walked from North Platte to Lincoln
to escape her long red fingernails
and fall into my open arms

All I ever wanted was to see you smile
the same as now
while we wait in the car
but you left me when your mother stopped
when you found yourself stable, happy even
I became irrelevant, despite professed love

I know you further than
the other girls.
far enough to sit in the back of my mother’s car
seats reclined, watching shadows pass over the moon
looking at me like you used to
you see right through to the center of me
of course I still love you.