Blue Jean Summer
Yesterday was the first time we drove together, knees crowded and close, windows down. I make
you stop for an unkempt black dog too close to the road. You sigh. Pull over. We walk, our boots
heavy over the damp grass, but the mutt leaves as mysteriously as it arrived. We kick pebbles on
the way back to your car. I have to jog a little to catch one before it tumbles into the woods. I
don’t think either of us have ever played soccer.
The parking lot is empty by the time we get there, and we scramble up the hill and into the dense
forest. You don’t have shoes, and neither of us brought bathing suits. The air is cool and heavy
with island mist and mosquitoes and other morning things. We are both afraid of the ticks. When
we lower in, the water is warmer than the air, and my batman shirt billows up to my chin with
water like a bullfrog. I ask you if I can dive, and you shrug as if to say, why should I care?
It’s too deep for handstands, but I try anyway, fingers straining for nothing, legs kicking up in
the air like a duck diving for fish. Our clothes are in piles on the dock, the knees of our jeans
touching. If you go deep enough in the water, flip belly up, the sun above you warps all cloudy
and untethered. If you dive deep enough, I fear, you will never want to come back up again.
Esme Israel
Esme Israel is a rising senior from Brooklyn, NY. She recently attended a 2-week creative writing program at Kenyon College run by the Kenyon Review, and her poetry and prose has been published in her school’s literary magazine and newspaper and the Martha’s Vineyard Times. Her poetry has won the Scholastic Silver Key and she also won her high-school’s literature department award. Outside of writing, she reads (a lot), works as a costume designer for her high school’s theater company, eats yummy food and volunteers in the summer.