Summer friends share watermelon slices
while the water laps the shore,
while sea-salt air dries on their lips.

And both of them think that “Days
like these, with salt and sugar on our lips,
make for the best kinds of kisses.”

So summer friends share watermelon slices
while they dance in the sand, and
around each other just enough, and too much.

And both of them think that “this day is almost
perfect - and it would be if she were
holding me.”

When summer friends run out of watermelon slices,
they lay on the beach,
quietly wishing and wanting.

And both of them think that “I wish
she looked at me the way she’s looking at those clouds.”
With their fingertips inches apart.

Summer friends lay amongst watermelon rinds
while water laps the shore,
while sea-salt air dries on their lips

And both of them think that-

Both of them say that
“I love you.”

Wrought-wide eyes from catching clouds on the safety of our backs
Who's lifting who dried-up with the fossils, tucked away at Jack's
Can you capture the oily maze of Perla, Gary, Glen AND Dee?
We should cap the treasure trove. Just one shell. Alright... three.

Passenger mats drowned long ago in quartets of sandy shoes
They're coming around to dukkah, but beetroot's an ongoing feud.
We'll find our way back to purple-brown after art class in year nine
Until then just squeeze my hand when they see "****" every time.

Curse words stowed beneath our necks, cellared with the red wine.
Pull binoculars out in twenty years to seek parrots in sun spines.
Trick them into dusking walks, the promise of ice cream at Kateri
Squealing across Eileen's golden grain, I hope they pick Rasberry.

He swirls the sand beneath him and burrows his sweet brow.
She builds bridges for fairies and writes names in stick-crayon.
I'll say they're just like us, one day when they can stand it least
Until then their just like you dreamboat, floating down my east.

Like the waves,
Love crashed on our shores
And withdrew with fragments of us in it.

i am lying on my stomach
after having spent hours propped up on my elbows
spent hours reading, sunbathing
spent hours getting drunk and tired in the sun
i am outside our new chicago home
in a courtyard belonging to only us

i am sprawled on the transparent blue plastic of my past
the cerulean beach chair that never made it to a single beach.
its plastic wound and woven around the metal
like nothing i’ve ever seen before

and i fall asleep

and i’m awakened by the raindrops on the low of my bare back

but it is not raining

and i wake up naked, inside, in your arms as you tap out a tune on me

and the blue chair that we put in the shower
when my brother was too weak to stand
because my brother was too weak to stand
is nowhere to be found
even when he went to live in the hospital
that chair
gathered rust
in a closed, dripping shower

we threw it out
it reminded us of a hard time
he was our only surviving souvenir  

i miss the chair
and i miss the person he was before it all
before he gathered all this rust

drift lemons
on a beach of canters
for amber hyacinths

I passed by fancy
Beach homes and dreamt of being
Some rich man's bedspread