the first time: green-flank hose spilling water out of dead-gold mouth as you held it out to my thirsty mouth, and your boy-mouth touching mine before the cold-headache of the hose-water left me. i never knew how to react to you. twelve or twenty, i don't know how to react to you.

the last time: sunset-haze skyline spilling asphalt into the vortex-mouth of the air so everything's dusty grey half-dark. the apartment balcony might be a tenuous ship that breaks off the wall from our weight. we might die. "we might die," you said, so you pulled my mouth against yours. alleviate the pain of passing? i don't think so.