I remember my teenaged phantasm and I lace soft boots to draw
tall grass and sand dunes and hothotsummer,
a pair of teenaged lips on my teenaged lips in sundown,
the little wreckage of the family behind walls invisible from distance,
and the perfect quiet of strong teenaged hands, the I-never-want-to-leave only
in that we know so certainly we will
come fall—
the beauty in the shooting of the star
and not the star.

I tilt the rearview, sweater on, and leave to you.
I picture the soft reeds and pebble beach with-you-near-you and I think
how I could take you there and live a baby flame fantasy with a flair
for the dramatics and more fallapart than meets the eye or the mind’s eye, even.

I could kiss you behind clapboards
like goodbye is on the weekend
and cry to Cassiopeia that why-does-good-always-*******-go-away.

But it doesn’t always, not just yet, and so I leave my young Hollywood vision
to my young Hollywood visionary and I take your hand to pass
the quiet sad beach at miles on miles an hour, because I want
you for longer than the starry summer
and Dad’s averted eyes.