Throwing Rocks

Three-year-old footprints
in the rocks
and you ask,

“What is summer?”

April playtime,
and I laugh because I know
it’s when you get to go swimming.

I am still faster
and catch you before you get off the tarmac.

We are still holding hands.

naptime
playtime
schooltime

You succumb because
boys and girls
don’t play
so I cry a little
and throw rocks.

In the summer
we are ankle deep in the river-
shoes dangling on powerlines-
and you succumb
exhale menthol
spread her legs
trash my words

We are still holding hands.

You reach in deeper
and pull out bits
of soul
bits of childhood
transparent in our adolescence
and we think we are
the only ones
and then your mom hits your sister
and you tell me
she is going to Care-o-lyna
and I don’t see you for a while.

In the summer I surface
waist deep
and your face is in the river
over mine.

We are still holding hands.

Your hair is darker,
lips thinner,
and you are picking at the blood
on your fingertips
and you succumb
exhale menthol
spread my legs
trash our childhood

They were all wrong
so we cry a little
and throw rocks.

You reach in me deeper,
press me into the tarmac
because you are finally
faster.

We are still holding hands.

We are chest deep in the river
naked to each other
and bleeding the footprints clean
and you succumb                              and I succumb
exhale menthol                      exhale menthol
spread your legs                    spread my legs
trash your pillows                trash your pillows


We cry a little
and throw rocks.