Cows mooed as I held your trembling torso
through the seizures.
Your eyes reflected the moon when you came to;
I startled at my first womanly moment.
I knew I wanted to lay down, and stroke you breastbone to navel.

My fumbling reinforced your recovery.
You wouldn’t let me be late.
That was your excuse.
I didn’t have the emotional vocabulary to truck with your banter,
or you would have been my first
instead of, years later, a man who didn’t know
what he was taking
under the canopy.

Our breath fogged in front of us
as we jogged back to your beat-up jeep
and rolled past the lake,
at once,
austere and serene.
You made me laugh, all the way home
but I felt your panic.

The porch light was on,
and you reached past me
to open my door.