if i was a mystic if i had strong magic if i were born inside a star & you weren't already my older sister's best friend i would trap time forever inside the hourglass of your green-eyed memory holding a skinny ultra can shoulders deep brown from catching two sunsets in a row standing chest deep in a clear water river with the ***** bottle coozy & your torn-up shorts rolled halfway down
i was a six-foot-something anxious baby with wavy blond hair and blue eyes when you gave me a triumphant pinch inside my ribcage under the table at dinner one night my chest still tremors when i remember & when the brave sunlight touched my knees & bony nose after a long night with you paralyzed for ten hours tangled nestled so tight together the nerves in my fingertips & eyelids went numb like waking up in the middle of a first kiss
i remember our fun-drunk voices echoing flatly off the popcorn ceiling of your apartment when you giggled & told me i'm better than all the ballcap guys in all the dusty saloons you've tried sloshing free ones across the bar at you or bouncing their farmer's tans against you & off of you on the wooden dance floor i grabbed your waist tight & whispered you're better than all the girls in all the hash houses & hookah bars i've seen absentmindedly holding a ukulele on their hips smoking & yelling over the boys swarming around them
i want to catch every warm slow second of the sun or your lips on mine i want to taste the dawn & your sweet skin fresh like rain i want to smell the dew being burned off the st augustine grass outside & when my forehead glows sharp like feverish red sunlight you will press whatever part of you is coolest there & all the muscles of my body will relax & sing to you
it was dawn when you mounted me for the third time wearing $600 cowboy boots & nothing else except the red lipstick you found under your messy bed naturally you practiced spurring me with the heels & hollering like a wild bird in the big open fields of america as the colors bled through & into my forced closed eyelids turning them pink like the inside of a curved seashell or the curtains of your bedroom your daughter came in rubbing her eyes with tiny fists & a healthy smile her cheeks rosy with warm sleep & sunshine kisses you dismounted quickly & swung a shirt over your shoulders
i stand stretch to yawn & scratch my chest as you both run away screaming about sausages & pancakes i'm left there feeling like a heart transplant you swore we'd never stop dancing & there you are sure enough boot-scootin' around the kitchen in just my workshirt & your lace ******* checking the cabinets for champagne to sift over the last bit of florida's natural o-jay
but you really are my older sister's best friend so i should just forget it because you like to scoff at me & make half-jokes that you have terrible taste in men or i couldn't afford you anyway