First Almost Love

Summer night
1983
Feet bare on August cooked asphalt
Ojai sky indigo
trapped under heavy orange glow
Naked for the first time
Running
When the moon, you said
Crab grass prickling under our feet
dewy leaves feather brushed our skin
Say I love you, he said.
But you don’t mean it.
Say it anyway.
Just for tonight.
Because the moon.
We wrapped our arms like morning glory
and its strangling flower
No time for blood rising
Nor fluids nor warmth–
Just the night
The indigo
The unwanted I love you
left laying out of its box
Still beating
Long after our homes took us back