Out of Focus

I like the idea of people living, he says and I like how it sounds and I say it again and a summer wind blows through the car window and it’s warm and dry and smells of campfire.  High in the sky the moon hangs low and the leaves in the trees click and moan and a girl hula hoops on the side of the road, alone she’s spotlit in porch light red, her arms stretching and twisting above her head and her body twitches through her white lace dress.  I turn off the radio in the street lamp glow and a boy I hardly know reaches over and puts his hand on my thigh and smiles at me with his crinkly eyes and I lean my head back and listen to the night and make waves in the wind that bend the light.  I tell him to turn left and he does and it’s lovely, the city resting down the hill, centered in the place the oaks don’t fill and I hold a pretend camera and take a pretend picture and say, click, and he smiles again and squeezes my leg and he likes me and I like him and for now we like each other and he brushes my hair back from my face and rubs my earlobes between his fingertips and he nips at my lips and holds me tight and close and counts my ribs as I laugh at night.  The lights below shine bright and blue and hide the stars, but they’re lost too, swallowed by the black trees as we coast and some where close fireworks explode and flare and lazy smoke hangs in the air.  The road curves and a wall runs along the side, covered in vines that creep into the street and brush against the car like a wool brush on steel and he leans over at a stop sign and kisses my neck and I feel, I feel