The summer of ’87, lush greens
giving way to sand dunes along
the highway, beachgrass fingers
coaxing us forward in the breeze.
I’m crammed
in the station wagon’s wood-paneled womb,
Neil Diamond’s crooning become a drone,
the live cassette long since stuck,
listening over and over to whale songs
of a future morn, thanking the Lord
for cherry America, or something.
Bored, my thoughts passed exit signs
promising tobacco outlets, porn
emporia, back to the day before,
in the living room with Steven,
poring over illicit Playboy
contraband. I was too young,
but he wanted to look, joked
about his big woody rising
to glossy fake boobs. My body’s
awkward unfurling in response
an aching secret kept close in denim.
The memory washed over me
like a wave, left salt on my skin,
salt in my mouth. Floating on
baritone currents with the angel
Caroline, I felt a smile etch itself
across my face as our Buick Estate
slid down the dotted highway
like a pulled zipper, baring
its teeth to a new-risen blue moon.
