The Summer I Was Sixteen

The Summer I Was Sixteen

The turquoise pool ascended to meet us,

its slide a silver idea in retrospect down which

we dove, shouting, into a hallucination of air pockets.

We didn't exist past the look of a kid.

Shaking water off our appendages, we lifted

up from step rungs over the plant cool

lip of edge. Evening. Oiled and satisfied,

we sunbathed, climbed and paraded the solid,

moved to the low beat of "Duke of Earl".

Past cherry colas, wieners, Dreamsicles,

we went to the counter where honey bees amazed

into root brew containers and suffocated. We ate

cotton confection lights, sweet as quick kisses,

shared on seats underneath summer shadows.

Cherry. Elm. Sycamore. We spread our chenille

covers crosswise over grass, squeezed radios to our ears,

mouthing the old words, at that point extricated

thin swimsuit lashes and rubbed child oil with iodine

crosswise over sunburned shoulders, hurling a look

through the steel at an impossible world.