It was never for the night, but only 
for the summer.     My seventeenth 
summer. Never would I say it shouldn’t 
have happened, because it did. 
You with a past 
I would certainly become a part of, 
and I collecting stories.   An identity. 
At seventeen. You took a part of that; 
of all, or whatever, went forward. 
What I have become. 
Bones are formed through experience, 
shaping us emotionally, physically, and 
psychologically.           Down to the soul. 
You were there.    There I was, 
not knowing what to expect, and you 
expecting nothing but honesty. 
I didn’t question your motives, nor did I 
question mine. Age was not important, 
you said, nor was intent. 
                           There was a difference. 
Seventeen years. but only one summer. 
July heat, the scent of patchouli, 
sandalwood and #5. Intoxicating. 
I tasted the moon on your breath, 
and witnessed the clouds in your eyes. 
A sullen anger, a hurt from before, and 
your impatient need to get over 
the emotions.       You talked about it. 
I could only listen, or try, to understand. 
At seventeen I could not know. 
Yet.   I would learn.   Eventually. 
In times of give and of take, we took 
consciously. Each of us. Never a moment 
of mixing the beginning up with the end. 
We knew.      I wouldn’t ask; 
at seventeen you don’t.    Of course, 
I remember fireflies, the music, touch, 
and the sense and secrets we rarely 
acknowledged.   Not enough time.   Only 
one summer.      It was close, something 
I had never had before, but it was not 
friendship. A friend you would see again. 
Not only for a summer.

© 2018 j.g. lewis