Summer Algebra

Summer sat in the heat watching day dreams play out
of festivals and barefoot fields, of sleeping in moonlight
hearing soft ocean tides, and the morning damp on our
clothes.

We were the silhouettes in the sunlight, love burning free
on highways and skylines, desert peaks, bikini lines,
and bad jokes reciprocated and the confidence to tell
our secrets in bright moments with old friends.

There were bedrooms and bathrooms and National Park
trails and backseats and loveseats and digging your nails
deep into skin in Cedar City

the weeks we’d arrived in Seattle, LA, Nevada; the sunshine
and the sweat I’d learned was mine from your skin and the
asphalt that drove our car nearly 4000 miles and the
silly idea you picked up,

that all this play
would rhyme with time
and answer your equation.