Summernapped

.…Browsing the gift shop, I pick up a scented candle with a summery name.  

One whiff of its deviously evocative vanilla, lemon, cocoa butter, gardenia, and heaven-knows-what-else mixed fragrance snatches me away.

Whoosh!

And drops me off in the summer afternoon of my adolescence.  

Coppertone suntan lotion, 

girls laid out on beach towels, 

the turquoise-tiled Elks pool, 

Stevie Wonder on the juke box,  

crushed ice in fountain Cokes.

  

Lazylong hot afternoons punctuated by cool dips in the deep end. 

All against an infinitely sprawling backdrop of possibility...

possibility that later on, that very night,
every night, 

might be the most romantic, delicious, exciting moment 

of my whole entire life.

Immersed in an easy certainty that after dinner, 

a long shower, 

slathers of Johnson's baby lotion 

and a spritz of Emeraud perfume . . .


After changing into cutoff jean-shorts and sandals 

and combing out our long, damp hair,

there would be baseball fields 
lit up all the way around Finnup Park.

Boys for waving at,

friends for walking with, 

front porch steps for sitting on, 

breezy twilight stretching forever into still, deep darkness.

And the radio  

tuned to K-O-M-A, Oklahoma City,

seeping silver-tongued promises out through the cracks of night.