it hasn’t been this warm since my hair was long

and it feels like the sun planned it out perfectly —

to bake our skin gently

while the wind swept us up like kite tails in the sky

and there must’ve been a lot of wind during my year-long leave

because you’ve been smoothed out and leveled,

furnished by the elements into a fully-formed man.

you have entire ecosystems in your clearwater eyes,

teeming with the blue innocence of adolescence

and spilling stories without speaking a word.

we look less alike now, you and i.

in fact, i look like the younger cousin

but I don’t really mind.

four hours have never fallen through my hands more quickly

than they did that easter sunday.

placing half empty beer cans behind parked cars

and poisoning our ears with trashy tunes

while the sun said its irish goodbye and dipped behind the

mountaintops of midwestern houses —

those moments are transient dandelion seeds

that drift without notice in the bustle of life.

but i think i’ll find those tiny seeds —

i’ll pick them up off the overgrown grass

and take them to my grave if poetry really counts for something.

because i want to remember the sun on my face

and how disheveled we got with the car windows down.

i want to remember before we grow old

and can only look back with a wrinkled smile

more fleeting than that lovely april afternoon