It is the tomato smashed upon the road; litter

in the minivan; the sun glaring past the cattails; 

tumbling into eighteen, in cheeks that glitter,

when the brief seconds of staring wash the

daylight into dark. It is gold hair strands, like

rope on the drive, whipping out the window. If

the world lost its glamour, was deprived of

my fascination––lust––and choked into burdens 

of mysterious, disastrous alchemy possessing

yearning teenagers, then I could pardon my 

actualized self; for the witchcraft of being alive.

I don’t pay mind to the dryness of my tongue,

under pretenses that I must be sorrowful, even

when the music stops suddenly, screws in my

ears, and then restarts. It is my rough knuckles,

coarse with regrowing hair, but it does not take

grip on me. It is letting go in my fingers and 

hangnails, forgetting the mortality of it all, in 

the moment of twilight and sexual fantasy. My

routine exorcisms of hormones, of loud spells 

singing along to eighties pop, loosens upon my

foot touching the gas pedal. Heaven feels close, 

twirling my tongue slowly, for once I turn the key

in my car, my body surfs. I become a woman 

of ancestral orgasms, eyes locked on the road;

the headlights and the brainstorming on which 

thoughts to categorize first, over sex or how

the wisps at my sideburns sit. It is simple magic, 

being a young woman, in virginity that bends 

and beats for touch, the same as I. 

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