Photo by Sydney Shaffer
This is a summer poem. Nothing
else but sun and barbecued hot dogs.
Charred from not paying attention
and too much liquid courage. It is sunburn
and peeling skin days after, the flakes
sticking to the old couch that you can’t replace.
I wonder how each year is so different,
yet the same smell still ruminates in the air. The pain
on our feet even present from running bare
in the sand and onto wooden logs.
One blinding sunny day, my sister fell
straight into the water and we all laughed.
Me from afar on the sidelines because I never
got into that kind of trouble. That made me
the scaredy cat of the cousins. I promised
my sister next time I would be there to catch her when she fell.
Kindergarten 