Hard shells on blacktop streets
Cars with burning seatbelts
Messes of weeds and barbed wire dreams
Dust from the tires of a backroad pickup
Tank top cut low
With her warm honey tan
She talks in her golden arbitrary way
Visible past the heat waves, she's a mirage
Sandy locks fall down a sculpted back
Salt dried wisps frame her face
Forest green eyes reflect nothing but what you want to see
Netted tennis courts with daisy crowns strewn about
Glass bottles from the week before
The smell of earth and heat bringing back those memories
Those long legs in meager shorts
Her closed eyes, face tilting towards the sun
Taking her hand the first time by the pier
She smiles and you forget you left your breath at home
You didn't need it anyway
Warm nights in the ocean breeze
Driving fast with her hair a tangled beauty
Dark kisses under the boardwalk
Her back pressed against the wood
Strangers shoes echo from the planks above
Feet dig into the warm sand
You cup her face and realize she's it
The rain and the current
The choking heat and the burning lungs
The relief from a calloused heart
A precious jewel covered by dirt
She's an overwhelming summer high and your the ground where she lies
But your okay with that
Because she deserves the sky
You're standing on a precipice,
Looking down and afraid
So afraid of the fall
Jump and you could lose her; hesitate and you'll never see what could've been
But she splashes you with saltwater and her eyes crinkle in the sunlight and you know
You know it's okay to fall
She'll be the one at the bottom waiting
