There’s a moment
When your eyes meet his
Next to the ramshackle corner store.
On that warm july night
You recognize him.
But you’ll forget him
In a few months.

Old friends,
Sharing a street corner
A smile of understanding
The yelling from a distant house
That you walked away from.
A lighter in your hand
A pack of cigs in his.

You don’t smoke cigarettes,
But you still hold out your lighter.
You don’t remember when he
Started smoking.
But that’s what the strange humid air
Of july nights do.

There’s a sort of warm crazy
On summer nights,
A feeling that makes you
Want to smoke a cigarette
With a boy you’ve known since you were twelve.

This is the last july
You’ll all be together.
The last time you’ll go to
The old neighborhood pool,
Last time you’ll walk into this corner store with
Familiar blinking neon signs
Just to buy a lemonade at midnight.

You wonder what it’ll be like
Next july,
If you’ll be standing on a street corner
Hundreds of miles away.
You ash the cigarette on the pavement
And you wonder if
The corner store’s a country away will
Have neon signs that blink like that.