tanned thighs perfect music and perfect laughs your house sits on the hill where the bay lies grassy and stretching down to where the water runs like a marathon medalist or a tidal pool circling around to reach its tail you tail me too, when we chase each other on these fine white sands tail me, I dare you, get me, adore me like you do at 3 in the morning when you have me on the counter to sing to and look at me fanned nights, palms in the sticky air of a summer evening spread like cards on the low table heat simmering like breakfast at 4, which we take with us to have on cracking shells and blacked feathers along the shore I see your skin, soft, pulling sand—your fingers—sifting beaches, straining them easily warmer than the sun—your eyes august nights that bring the fight into you you’re talking nonsense, but it makes perfect sense because it’s you rosy cloud matter hangs above ‘till I’m under glass surfacetops, at the bottom of the sea but I wake up just above it to be a floater—streaming boater girl, always really, just watching you, down with another, passion firing your eyes, unlocked I watch as I do butterflies wild and free to fly it’s okay, I told you you’re suntanned and you’re mad you’re talking, like you do but it’s okay because you’re free