Do you remember that summer night
when we went outside to watch the storm
and ended up on our backs in my front yard?


Do you remember the rain falling on us like tears,
or the wind whipping at us like a warning,
or the lightening flashing above us like enlightenment?


Do you remember our respectful silence--
listening the the thunder thumping around us,
shaking the sky with the hundreds of things we left unsaid?


Do you remember the howling of the neighborhood dogs,
which, at the time was enchanting,
but in retrospect, ominous?


Do you remember my mother calling us crazy,
or the way that we told her that, like most things in life,
this too would be over sooner than we wished.


Do you remember the way it was over before we knew it,
or the steam rising from the asphalt like a memory,
or how the silence dragged on forever until the crickets finally chirped again?


As disillusioning as it is to admit,
our love was a summer storm in the sense that
it went against all reason for it to exist,


it was quick, tumultuous, inconsistent,
much, much bigger than us,
and now, a memory.