Young people please themselves doing absurd
things in summertime. In Montgomery,
one year, we went wild for public skinny-
dipping. Fridays, five o’clock, we labored
to stuff our cars with beers and smokes and meat.
Hard booze. Old towels. We raced north to beat 
the minivans, pour cocktails undeterred
by rangers, cast off, tight but still discrete.

Was that the August I lost my first job?
In point of fact, was I young? It felt so.
Come dark, we’d shuck swimsuits to draught below
the surface, grown cooler above. I’d bob,
a discarded Schlitz can—Who knows? Some form
of water—briefly buoyant, boundlessly warm.