Amber

wearing shorts on the front porch
the tangerine glow of
this melancholy summer
lays in layers over
the unshadowed inches of our legs
the ghosts that live in photographs
have taken their red eyes and drunken smiles
out from under the bed
and into our hands

it is too early for acorns

we snatch the light as it falls
extracting the best lines
filling our notebooks with honey and cursive
her pages like peaches
heavy and sweet and bruisable
mine like plums in a saucer of milk

even the smallest leaf is someone's blanket

our hair creates curtains
as we curve over glue sticks and twine
attaching and trapping and tying bits down
the tree shadows descend from overhead
they wrestle and collide
in butterscotch and coffee patterns on our skin

the bees sing her favorite song

and so
we climb into the sticky tree sap puddles
smearing our cheeks and elbows
and and anticipate our petrification
for someone to uncover us
legs and necks and little toes
as priceless and pristine as we feel
in the golddustsed pages of our former selves