By Isabella Wisinger
For Madison
Glass clinks in the backseat as we roll to a stop at the waterfront.
June is the slowest summer month, so we’ve already spent a thousand nights together
With our friends who wait on the gazebo, glowing under fairy lights.
Your hands hold the necks of two bottles, candy-glossed nails the same color as the wine.
Even your lipstick is called Cabernet Crush.
Our spirits are buoyed on a current of electric music,
And lifted higher by the grins of our purple-toothed friends.
We howl our laughter across the black twilight lake, and it echoes back to us.
My brain begins to swirl in my head like the red wine in my glass,
Maybe because I’ve had enough.
Or maybe because your gaze is magnetized to each movement I make,
And I can’t help but look back at you.
Somewhere between a gentle hand on my shoulder, or an arm around your waist,
I end up sitting in your lap.
Your eyes are so dark, there’s no way to distinguish the line separating the iris from the pupil.
I look for it anyway, leaning closer, to see if the line really exists at all.
“Come with me,” you say.
My agreement propels us away from the lake to a quiet place shrouded by trees.
The question that has been hanging between us is answered.
With warm hands and soft eyelashes,
Your amber perfume and my shaking breath.
I know part of us will be preserved here, in this night, and that is enough.