The finest July in Florida was the one we had first in the swell of our glittered
combustion, the one where summer used all its sun to bleach room
for our conversation, time long & languid enough to make me complacent
enough that my unexamined judge
slipped into the backseat unnoticed & road tripped
along with our pop radio silently until inspiring
my smug announcement:
yeah yeah yeah
wouldn’t & could never hold its own without
music, never rise as a fine line for a poem, being
as it is all singular & naked. I said this without any doubt
stumbling over my tongue, standing only
on me. But all she had to say was
why not
for the world’s color & my speechlessness to flush into so many
washed out places. She asked one magnesium question & our car
turned the road into a neon ramp & bore down on its wings.
She cured this crab of its shell— I came clean
as an animal: with a precise hunger, unharmed. My pulse skipped out
to call for more muscle. I lived in a possible world away from myself.
Each breath walked into my lungs single file through a long lace veil.
Taught proper that season, I still lift my hands
against our sunroof just to notice my palms
clear as prisms, splitting the light just because.
