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Writer's pictureNicole Verbitsky

Summer is prettier with you

My favorite person takes the splinters out of home,

with patience that unthaws my confessions and sets their mockery ablaze.


Look, this brain of mine humiliates me,

that lightning in a bottle people speak of?

your smile would shatter it into smithereens.


I'll master clumsiness to a special degree —

losing my phone case in the mall, misplacing my keys in the trunk,

fumbling with the pool cue in his grandparents' bar, jumping the stripes each time,

skimming the jukebox for John Denver on Easter, forgetting about the leftover pizza.


A week or so passes with Rita's cherry gelati on my mind,

seeping onto the hood of my car, the stains awash, fond of the raspberry custard

to savor you all over the edges of your lips — again, again, again!

you say comedy comes in threes, to the best of my belief, so does passion.


Before I fall asleep, I’ll let you be the big spoon,

no chasing after the adrenaline rush for me,

no fleeting thrills, this romance of ours is an explosion in slow-motion.


Reminiscing July when we were day-drinking and being choked by insomnia,

my throat unaccustomed to: the sting of alcohol trickling down, abrasive hands from the tedious day-job strain. Aloe skimmed on awkwardly tanned arms, rose-tinted Ramune bottles refracts light from your nightstand while “Mon Amour,” glides the tip of your tongue the way your kisses hover both sides of my neck.


Lovebug, you shy little thing —

I’ll always endure a scalding shower as long as it’s with you massaging my back.

Hibachi for my birthday when it was supposed to be for yours, sharing fried noodles and steak with me (don’t drink the water, don’t suffocate on the steam, swallow lake water from the swimming hole, a scraped knee from the rope swing).


Now here we are, this sunroof will unveil an August that will drip upon us gleefully,

clingy AM dew on the passenger door handle, peach fuzz

stream of consciousness rolled into the sleeves of this amber-drenched sweatshirt.



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