Buck's Pork Store

1.

Smelling of sundried chlorine 
and tequila sunrises tropical blend

we kicked up dust

along a gravel beach

of a busy suburban road

never considered to 

make room for childhoods.

2.

In our town of one

inconvenient store thinly sliced

roast beef, cheddar, and butter

was piled between

hard rolls, curves contained

neatly into tailored 

wax paper we carried

all the back to our towels

the never fully dried. 

3. 

It was not until a snapping 

turtle drowned their retriever 

bringing teeth to a sleeping pond 

that our summer immunity

became as indistinguishable 

as the letters we took 

turns spelling into 

each other's 

baked backs of stillborn

crushes that never

had a chance of being

dreamed into being.

 

One Letter Off

A Hotel 

outside the
Lincoln Tunnel 

could be a migration

pausing to accept

the open invitation

of a mouth

awaiting the kiss 

of a new day.

A Motel 

outside the

Lincoln Tunnel

was a terminal 

breath trapped 

somewhere beneath 

the exhaustion 

of stalled toll 

traffic wasting away.