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the girl down the street
played guitar on
her porch
when the heat dissipated with
the arrival of the evening

she’d sing about her lord
and the taste of her grandmother’s
cool hands
that she can’t feel anymore

when she left for college
she took her guitar
and that leather case
she carried around

and back then
I was too scared to say
I love the way your lips part
the way your skin darkens
when mine turns pink

she worked in Raleigh
for some time before moving
to the European coast

and now
I can’t drive through that city
without whistling the songs
she used to play on her
mother’s porch