I.
Light slips off your cheeks
like soap. You are all bending limbs,
folded elbows, knees. Silhouette grey,
your smoke is slow and follows the telephone wires
away. I am too long, gangley
to fit comfortably anymore in this spot
next to you, in mosquitoes and sluggish heat.

II.
You were to be my summer story.
Adventure, something to write about.
I felt like a dancer in the wings,
the world's secret, someone
who would make your mother laugh.
Outlines and maps--I plotted the end
before it could have happened,
a prophesy in poetry, self-fulfilling.

III.
It won't be long before you leave.