CABIN #8
by Sophie Kilbride
somewhere in the woods circa summer 2020
Soft cheek and freshly baked freckles swathed in quilted
dusk tilt toward warmth. A speckled wrist stretching,
grasping, arrives red-hot against a rib bone. Moments for
stirring, for the shifting of sheets. A pause for limbs to
untangle, only to get lost in themselves again. On late
afternoons like this, it was just the sun melting outside
your grandpa’s one-room cabin, its wood-paneled walls
tinting blue and
>> the shadows >> of horny lovesick fingers >> disappearing
under shirts >> our whispers >> blooming >> iris bruises >>
behind earlobes >>
That summer taught us the truth about light, lessons in
forgiveness, like the right time to flick the lamp switch
off just before our wet tongues, dying delightfully silent,
eroded into bareness. Consumed by darkness, dysphoria
fell away, discarded on the carpet until tomorrow. We
learned to swallow the July sun and to save room for the
latest edge of each day. Sunset was religion, accented by
pits of late summer fruit collecting in the kitchen sink.
Cherry stones—pushed unromantically between our teeth
and out, sailing into the neighbor’s lawn—were our way of
swapping secrets. Juice-stained pillowcases were rinsed clean
and clotheslined in the front yard, white linens catching
the breeze, glittering like flags—the first declarations of
ourselves reserved for the forest.
>> two hands interlacing under covers >> brown eyes crinkling
>> your soft smile >> flickering golden >> when the trees >>
didn’t seem to mind >>
Our naked bodies on the lawn, creek water air-drying
between our toes, we closed our eyes, and kissed in the
brief man-made blackness.