'Then I will call you Summer,' the girl called Flowers said.
Both girls sat cross-legged on the trampoline playing with each other's toes. They couldn't hear the school bells from the yard, but knew their classmates would be flooding the street with brash words and crude gestures. They forewent the crass trivialities and spent the day together, lying in the long grass and holding hands, daring each other not to blush.
Sun setting behind the house
rays passing through windows
through doorways through dust
through windows warming our necks.
Ice rattling in glasses of tea
a mouse sneaks up to scattered bird seed
and scurries around fallen hibiscus blooms.
My grandmother and I sit with our legs crossed
and watch the boys' chests as they walk
their ribs and muscles young and bruised
from fighting from fucking from drunken car crashes.
They wave at us and we don't blush the way their classmates do
we smile and know that we've had better.