I can remember one particular time, in her grandparents’ attic,
her legs, slightly older than mine, shaved amphibian-smooth,
her breath around my face like an evaporated puddle.
Naked or almost, in semidarkness, her blue eyes
dusk. We wouldn’t allow our mouths to touch.
She’d hold her hand over mine and tongue her own knuckles.
Each time was the last time until the real last time,
which felt more like a beginning. Earth on the third day.
Alluvium. Swamp lily. Wax myrtle. Rose mallow.
Adam would kiss me in a similar way not long after,
as part of the school play, using his thumb to make a barrier
between our lips, and all our classmates would watch us.
I was bleeding from my center, I remember, the moment
his hand made contact with my face—forgettable
line he’d scrawled in blue ink risking to smear
across my cheek. So much time passed
between the kiss and the ending. I remember thinking
it seemed like the applause was for our deaths.