Jetsam

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.