Ten

So easily I forgot
Lifting the sandbox in Arizona and catching
The geckos and keeping them as pets
In a halloween candy's jack-o-lantern
Their tails would fall clear from their bodies
And we'd shriek and we'd run from them
Playing keep on 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 post in the tomato garden
Spying on the neighbors swimming
Laughing laughing, that night
In Maine I met my best friend
Talking till 7am
Realizing we were 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 would keep
Talking talking, on that drive
Up the winding mountain roads
From Hudson to Vermont in the season's first 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 its mouth
She was ten and she wrote it down
There's a sweetness in us that lives long past the dust on our eyes once our eyes finally close.