For Sebastian, Now
Our sputtering, starting hearts
giggled around every curve
of night; your curved spine
close, lips, every seam of your smile. Miles
of fields, how wheat stirred
that big bowl of stars, how we were never
that young again, the sky large enough
to hold us. How somehow now, we both fold
into then unknowable warmths. You once
held the rough skin
of my elbows while I unicycled
down an empty road, evening full
with the promise
of moon, and you: the biggest light,
like I didn't even need a full
sky, and remember our easy
feet, our easy keys and front doors,
our little brothers
asleep, and summer's slow
hum. Home this year is three blocks
from downtown, and I keep
a plant in the kitchen window, still green
after winter. Sometimes my lover sleeps
all afternoon; I leave, and
return to his breath, its every lift
between sheets limned with the day's softest
light, and I lay next to him. Those nervous-kneed
days so small, so far away, but still in me
is the barefoot bloom of youth,
the middle seat of a rusted truck, streetlights
pulling a glow across that face of yours like
this was it, the whole world
and all we wanted
of it spinning on the tips of our simple
fingers, while we spun
directionless through night.
giggled around every curve
of night; your curved spine
close, lips, every seam of your smile. Miles
of fields, how wheat stirred
that big bowl of stars, how we were never
that young again, the sky large enough
to hold us. How somehow now, we both fold
into then unknowable warmths. You once
held the rough skin
of my elbows while I unicycled
down an empty road, evening full
with the promise
of moon, and you: the biggest light,
like I didn't even need a full
sky, and remember our easy
feet, our easy keys and front doors,
our little brothers
asleep, and summer's slow
hum. Home this year is three blocks
from downtown, and I keep
a plant in the kitchen window, still green
after winter. Sometimes my lover sleeps
all afternoon; I leave, and
return to his breath, its every lift
between sheets limned with the day's softest
light, and I lay next to him. Those nervous-kneed
days so small, so far away, but still in me
is the barefoot bloom of youth,
the middle seat of a rusted truck, streetlights
pulling a glow across that face of yours like
this was it, the whole world
and all we wanted
of it spinning on the tips of our simple
fingers, while we spun
directionless through night.
Emily Alexander is a writer, a student, a clumsy waitress, an older sister, and a self-proclaimed foodie. Her work is featured or forthcoming in Potluck Magazine, Harpoon Review, and Radar Poetry. She was recently awarded the Academy of American Poets Prize at the University of Idaho, where she is working her way through an undergraduate degree in Creative Writing. She can be found at emilyalexander.yolasite.com.
