By Jenna Goldsmith
You’re getting married
and I’m thinking
of the water tower,
tip of Broad Street,
grass sheaths stuck
under terry cloth spun
open and draped
sidelong over
thighs. I’m messed
up on the details.
Was there
a pool in Annette’s backyard?
Were you wet
headed? For sure backs
sloped the gentle grade
to the water tower,
or was the ground
flat but for
divots boned
by skidding kneecaps,
zippered creases open
to hold curved
theres and
theres
necks bent up
to the tower’s
enormous bulb.
It was must have
been night, muggy,
your friends outlined
shapes standing aghast over
us and this
wasn’t even the last time.
I wish I remembered
the jeans I wore, if my
hair yet cut
short, clean
or dirty, had I given
it up, was it the you and I
before or after
the movie theater?
All scenes your
abominable memory
reasonably released
but I know you remember
the tower.
I saw it.
On some level,
on some plane of
a near reality,
we’re at the water tower,
bodies arched bridges
but to ourselves
who are still us
who are still us
Jenna Goldsmith is a poet and Lecturer in English at Rockford University. Her poetry chapbook, CRUSH, was the winner of the 2022 Baltic Writing Residency chapbook contest. She resides in Rockford, IL and online at jennalgoldsmith.com.
