A Casual Summer

We spent the summer with the stereo up loud,
with the windows down and the speedometer jumping,
just practicing casual conversation
over the dull roar from the speakers.

We spent the summer singing and spinning,
letting the earth cradle and rock us
to sleep,
nested casually and comfortably with our friends,
watching the stars in their infinite wisdom,
in their infinite distance,
in their imminent death
turn great wheeling circles in the sky.

We spent the summer storm-chasing
and we watched the wrath of god proclaimed
like a banner across the sky –
we saw through lightning-dazzled eyes,
with raindrops clinging to our eyelashes
and our clothes clinging to our skin.
When our clothing was too confining,
we took it off, and we reveled in the ease of it.

And at summer’s end
when the heat fled
and the stars turned frigid and unwelcoming,
we remembered the closeness,
the casual comfort,
the roar in our ears and the moisture in our eyes.

We remembered the dazzled eyes
and the shedding of our second, too-tight skin –
and we made the thunder come again,
casually.

Well, it was all so casual, so easy –
so easy to get lost in the thunder,
to go blind in the rain,
so easy to be the wreckage,
so easy to be the debris,
so easy to be a casualty
when it’s all just so casually free.