Sticky summers provide
the usual souvenirs:
Tan, crisp faces
pockets scratchy with sand
and countless heart-biting, igniting images
of boys in bookstores and in buses
stooped over novels with jagged names
lips sparkling with pricks of blood.

These darling invite lavender-pink dreams
to feed the fat vacancies between our thoughts and
tirelessly, we imagine when our paths might crash
arousing love-sparks to gallop free
so we, too, might
leap.

Soon we will experience
the slap-sting of beautiful boys
who feign interest just to prove they can
seduce us into a face-slam
with a pole,
or an ouch-slip into a ditch.
While rubbing our bruises
and brushing off wormy dirt clods,
We will glance at him, suddenly strong, a phoenix born from the ashes of heart-burn

And think:
Did the lumps in our throats betray our careless expressions?