This summer, I am keeping a collective of my writing, from drafts through revisions to the version I am willing to let live. This post is for the poem “On Emerging from Lytle Tunnel.”

This summer

This summer, the pool overflows & the tree loses

its limbs. The garden gathers a glut

of dragonflies & freesias. Floodwater staining

all the walls black. 

With the summer light fading,

you floor it down the highway while I bend 

against the passenger window, a marionette 

strung by streetlights, assembled from the sidewalk

 

winding every way south. I’m in love

this summer: with you and the breeze 

spinning me ‘round in the passenger seat. With the boy I 

chipped my teeth on and the light sifting over the dash

and the sky sleeping gently and the stop sign so red 

it could only be this summer at sunset.

On Emerging From Lytle Tunnel

In July, the pool overflows & the tree loses

its limbs. the garden gathering a glut 

of dragonflies & freesias. floodwater staining

the asphalt all black. With the summer light fading, 

we chase shooting stars in the last 

quarter of the highway. the sky burning

shade of tongues running over teeth. the route 

winding every way south. Highway winds spin me ‘round 

in the passenger seat, but I am a marionette

strung by streetlights from home:

this wind of running off mangles 

me into a refrigerator-wide knot. A straw

is bitten and soaking in the styrofoam

melting on the cupholder. my legs are sunburnt and

peeling back fresh flesh. I smile in a gradient:

eggshell to asylum white from the boy I 

chipped my teeth on. In the flash of dark, we can only

rush to the other end: like your hand on my

lower thigh; mine running races in a circle

on the peach bone of my ankle, shadows 

convalescencing into us when you’re too

tired to drive, staining our skin the perfect

shade of night. Headlight glow swims over reflections

of us on the dash. fingertip tornadoes chasing ripples

down the center of your cup. and your eyes watch the road 

black and white: snow on the interstate and tar 

licking the other end of your cigarette. you say

the smoking might kill you first, so I equalize this by hanging

my head out the window, with an under

the skirt view of the sky,

undulating shades of blue: reminding me

we’re actually spinning as we’re speeding

in the interspatial, galactic sense; in the

atomic & minute sense, so it makes 

sense for the sky to be choking

this silent. for the stop sign

to be so red. for you to

smile at me so honestly

i forget to look back

at what I’m leaving behind.