yellow ink

candlelit card games on summer porches and the soft sweet taste of small smooth onions in my mouth. cinder block confessions, shared cigarettes, crumbling foundations and smudged cheeks.

summer nighttimes sweep by in broad strokes, each illuminating a new depth or a slow fade to misdirection. our small hands - yours with bitten fingernails, mine long and knobby-jointed - our small hands grasp at the few straws of our bareskinned memories while we stub toes on new demands. on door sills and windowsills and rusty screens dangling from their frames. in the summer you are the light of a borrowed cigarette gesticulating toward the dawn. in the summer the sticky air on my thighs brings me to leafy forests and old streets framed in wrought iron. you are the bruise on my gums. you are the damp hairs lying flat on my neck, the irresolute wanderings of fruit flies around our lazy yard.