Big ionic pillars on the back porch nestle
into the sky: an ember peach ablaze.
I’m trying to suck the last deep green tints out of the trees before they are reduced to shades of grey:
looming, hulking trees. They surround the backyard like uniformed protectors of this small party of naive, brazen aristocrats.
You lean back in the white plastic lawn chair; the legs bend beneath it
and your head tilts to the sunset.
A beer dangles from your middle finger and thumb—half empty.
The peeping frogs begin the midsummer’s evening with a reveling—
their chorus of buzz and hiccup drones.
I’m pulling my fingers through my tangled hair, letting chin fall to chest—
trying to peer at the bronze shocks of it that snake down.
I don’t think we’ve spoken in fifteen minutes.
The crackly stereo is a buoy in the emerald grass;
its lights blink blue—the cord erratically shimmies up to the porch and in
through the open window from when you hauled it out here.
Ella Fitzgerald, and maybe Otis Redding with a smattering of Elton John’s older records are on repeat.
I’m trying to remember why I grabbed the notebook and began to write.
Maybe it’s because I’m not even here right now. In fact, I’m a great distance away—
in a cold office in February in the deep plunges of the city.
But I’m thinking about what it’s like. It’s like when the woodpecker makes too much noise but not enough for us to find out where he is.
In the space between the stars that I span with my outstretched finger I had this feeling of something—
a rickety table in the backyard adorned with hot dog rolls and citronella candles;
hot milk bubbling up in the silver pot;
mango just in the second before you plunge into it with your dull knife;
beer in a green bottle with a candle shining behind it;
seven days straight of this;
the sight of your chest in a button down shirt unbuttoned—rolled up at the sleeves;
the minutes when it gets too dark to read but the light still feels weird being on;
the moment when you feel something good coming in the future:
three-day-old sun tea with the perfect sweetness,
a returning friend who hugs you for a while,
a smiling mother who knows what your three different frowns mean,
a walk where you realize the greatness of your legs—
That’s where I am. The space between the stars.
I can fill it with my forefinger. Put myself right there.
I can fill any space with my forefinger
if there is enough distance.
