On hot nights we would sit in the detached
truck bed sandwiched between two hickory trees,
peering into the clearing that housed the moonlight.
Shadows of branches reaching one to the other
on the ground. Far in the distance we would see the light
through the window of your house. Your mother was sitting
in a walnut rocker making potholders, checking
the dark oak, grandfather clock, chiming midnight.
The only sounds were those of the whippoorwills
and the trickling of the creek behind us. Looking at your leg
shimmering in the softened white light, I slapped a mosquito
on your knee. You slid closer and shagged my sweaty hair.
For a moment it felt like we could stay there for years,
fed only by the wild swarms of darkness and mosquitoes.
