The stars hung low in their beds over Estero Beach:
we picked them like ripe apples from night’s heavy bough,
collected them in the baskets of our thirteen-year-old eyes,
tossed them at each other like stardusted grenades,
our bodies splattered with the hope held in starshine.
The summer night hung black like a magician’s cape:
full of secret pockets and hidden seams,
flowing easily over our shoulders
giving grandeur to such a simple beach-camp setting.
We drew our dreams in the glittered desert sand
that blew into the truck bed of your dad’s Toyota,
pledged an oath in our teenage language of banter and giggles
to these fingertipped outlines, preserving them
as if they were permanently etched in stone
while the Mexican Pacific bore witness,
stamping assent with its salt upon our skin.
Brown skin. White skin. The skin of childhood friends
not yet scrubbed raw innocence.
-Maren
