It’s not as if I hadn’t been where she is before
because I had.
Warm sun rays had beads of lotion
stream off her shoulders
to a puddle on the towel beneath her sun-kissed skin.
I was where she was, too,
until I knew what I knew.
Where she is, I ain’t no more.
I kept her memory in my back pocket
attached to a nude photo of her
suntanning by the pool.
If I only knew how to swim, she’d be mine.

(© 2022 AC)

(Wattpad, Amazon Kindle.)