Summer Girl

by Justin Lowe

OK
so we walked together for a while,
strayed from the pack, so to speak,
tugged at bush blossom with a curling lip,
no harm in that.

she was sporting a charm bracelet
just like my mother’s.
it seemed far too big for her,
but I said nothing, merely eyed
those slender wrists sleek as bottlenecks.

she was sure we had met before.
I was sure I would remember.
I said this with a solemn tilt of the head.
she stumbled into me then over some ancient roots,
angry glassy things clutched against the wind.

her touch was warm, fleeting
like the sand whipping our ankles.
I love those half-hours spent at a fork in the road, don’t you?
or at least I do now, counting back,
those timid footsteps at the water’s edge

before the tide turns.