In the flat and dusty nowhere
between two glorious somewheres,
dust lacquered our shoes, conditioned our hair,
desiccated the skin we showed the sun.
We wanted hills and fog, city noise,
the wilder girls that scared us along Haight
and the green meadows of the park where
forbidden things happened in cool daylight.
At home our freckles bloomed more freckles. We sweat
through shifts washing golf carts, dishes, bathrooms—always
invisible—mowing lawns, weeding, pumping gas,
or stealing hard green plums to pelt each other
on dark streets when the heat’s slap
felt a little less like punishment for dreamt sins.
Some nights we jumped fences and dove into city pools,
petty dust-mote delinquents. We sat, shadows
in shadows. We drank warm beers and wished
someone would take us water-skiing at Folsom,
wished winter would come, to cut school and bum rides
up the mountain to catch first powder and carve
our names down the sea-white peaks we would see rising
if rain would come to dampen the dust of our brown hills.