I can sense the smell of mangoes from afar, when I reach for the phone. How silly, how surreal that the scents of that summer living look back at me now.
I can sense the meat of morning, the metal glances of the outdoor kitchen, yellow sandals that squeezed my toes.
I remember thinking to myself in the hardest times (which now, silly, syrupy in that sweet past, grasp me in giggles, in their ornate armor of youth) that this time would mark me. That I would not move beyond, but within and with those momentary glances at growth, at the feathery mornings so hot and humid that my breath begged back at powdered juice, the silicone dippers that I splayed and splashed my skin.
As if I was among the waves that willowy, slightly abandoned, lay down the road, of access only be bareback, or the long, lean legs of youth.
In a precious peach flavor, sticky as the drawn out dews I slept amongst; sharp as the beats of the fan that flattened those batting bloodsuckers, miniature, skeletal makings of god.
Somehow, now, in my attempt to contact them--to reach out to that small sliver of who I was before this, before I felt a monopolized, marginalized self. Of all the complexities implicit in learning love. Somehow now it seems so large a part.
They are giant these wings, these pattering tongues of my time in that shade, much tougher to leave behind--even now, years later and many miles, many mes away--than times in sun.
