A Poem About My First Summer Romance

We were young,

had nothing and yet had everything.

That hidden trail was ours.

The pine tree resin was gilded by the sun for us.

On the bedsheets made of forest flowers

You fed me the handfuls of wild strawberries

and we laughed because you couldn’t

fit them into my mouth all at once.

We were drunk on being in love,

wrapped around each other like the wood vines

in the sunlit meadow with our knees up.

We were too busy being in love to notice

the mayflies swarming all around us,

having a love fest of their own.

As we lay under the dark sky bathed by moonlight

you found my hand and interlaced your fingers between mine

Then, a moment later

took your hand back to run it through my hair.

You were enraptured by the sight of seeing me sleeping,

as I was by you when your eyes were closed and you smiled.

When we woke up, you’d dust off all the pine needles

gently from my blue cotton dress,

the red rowan berries that entangled into my hair

would disappear into your soft palm as if you were a magician.

. . .

It was all so simple then, all roads laid straight ahead of us.

We were young, had nothing but each other and that was plenty.

***

First published in the Lark on Medium.