Song of the Blue Ridge Mountains
After Chelsea B. DesAutels
In the south we gather like thunderheads: urgent & heavy: make friends in every room: blue jeans stain on the walls: I kiss many lovers & not lovers: thumb blackberries from the ravine into our purpled mouths: at night I walk into dark places with strangers: part tall grasses buoyant: the first year we flock from one lit-up house to another looking for a place to put down our coats: dunk plastic cups into plastic bins: dance in basements on tables inside outside clothed unclothed: my worry a hopelessly blue sky: sweat in all the crevices: we help draft texts & laugh & cry uncontrollably: walk a ring at dusk waiting for the sky to turn: the green magic: it’s easy to fall in love here drunk on the hills: trespassing: the years feel boundless so we fill them up: drop a stone & wait for beauty: tongues & two-story beer bongs & new piercings: loneliness first nature: the one party with the sometimes lover his bone through skin: hands down low-waisted jeans: losing IDs wallets underwear each other: leaving: getting left behind: the sky stains our fingers: we get on our knees for mango bombs climb to the top of the pines: touch sap & count tattoos: assess the damage: dick pics & nudes & getting gaslighted to the moon: my panic scatters light waves blue from a distance: everything echoes: driving down the mountains coming down from a person a place: we pee on the side of the road: enamored with the world: this ridge of it: a boy drowned in the quarry but not us
