sitting on your uncle’s front porch
we ate bag-ripened peaches
that tasted of georgia soil
not that we had firsthand experience
but in our own
california twilights
we found a sense of belonging
to ourselves
as well as to each other
my pink-and-white toes
interlaced
with your scarred brown
creating an appalachian landscape
of calluses and knuckles
do toes have knuckles?
no one knew the answer
but
it was better not to know
to let our minds drift
over such things
as toe-knuckles and sand dollars
you once
brought me twenty sand dollars
all teeny-tiny perfect
strung on a fishing wire
the most
beautiful necklace I’d ever got
didn’t I love the way
you’d lean back, gangly-like
all over the steps
of your uncle’s porch
limbs
carefully sprawled into a pose
that smacked of machismo
machismo at 15
was hard to come by then
not something
bought at a corner store
or found in an abandoned gutter
no sir
something earned
earned in a first kiss
I gave you on the porch steps
when you gave me
the last slice of peach
how chivalrous of you
I thought
so I rewarded you
with a small kiss – pretty big thing
16-year-old kissing a
boy of only 15
but it was summer
only the fireflies
could whisper any stories
so I kissed you
and smiled
as you straightened up
blushed
and carefully arranged yourself again
composure supposedly unruffled
but
now you were metamorphosed
into a man
boy no longer
peach juice trickled down my wrist
I licked it off
aware
of eyes following my tongue
how hot
a june evening can become.