We were girls draping our bodies on the railing, letting our long, just-shampooed hair flutter like a summons to a future whose form we could hardly fathom; we were snapping gum or sharing smokes, giving side- -eye before the age of side-eye; we believed in how flushed our youth made us feel, how willing to be tested but not give all we had just as our mothers admonished. None of us could look too far ahead or say: by this time, I will have finished clearing a path to a life dazzled with desire; or by then, I will have made a circumstance free of pain. None of us could know why some of us prospered and some of us faded away, why not all of us came back stronger than before, having outlived the unexpected affliction.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.