Empty Nests

Tell me we'll be ten forever 

and I'll ride my scooter to your house 

every day, and never learn 

not to trip over the crack on your driveway. 

painting my nails every afternoon in your sunroom, 

the passage of time marked 

only by the whir of the ceiling fan and the drying 

of ocean-blue thumbs. 

boyfriends will stay an abstract concept 

but we are certain 

we will babysit each other's kids, 

rock together on porches, 

pin a million recipes on your fridge. 

But now I walk down Duke Drive 

underneath the burning red leaves 

and as I pass your house 

the second-story window is devoid of your shadow. 

I hand off kale to your mom 

instead of giving it straight to you after lunch and 

missing you grows in the garden too 

like the tomato vines creeping up the fence, 

like my lungs pushing out the end of a dusty summer, 

taking in clean air.