Ten

So easily I forgot lifting

The sandbox in Arizona and catching

The geckos and keeping them as pets and

On halloween candies, jack o'lantern, their tails would fall

Clear from their bodies

And we'd shriek and we'd run

Keep on playing

Playing

My sister

She is with me

Even when we are apart

We were wading through the water

Flashlights flickering in the dark

Climbing the laundry poles

In the tomato garden

Spying on all the neighbors swimming

Laughing

We were laughing

That night

In Maine I met my best friend

Talking 'til 7 a. M

Realizing we're both afraid of the notion

Of having our brains be in the body of a whale

In the ocean, deep

Where the light don't reach

And I loved him instantly

I knew we could keep talking

Talking

On that drive

Up the winding mountain roads

From hudson to Vermont in the seasons

Where snow, the boys asleep in the back of the car

We were in the front, we were singing along

To every word of the songs

That helped make us who we are

At the top of our lungs

Singing

Singing

My mother

My mother, she keeps a journal

Of her childhood memories as they return

My favorite's the story recounting when she saw an eagle

With a fish in it's mouth

She was ten when she wrote it down

There's a sweetness in us that lives long past the dust

On our eyes, once our eyes finally close