My three siblings and I, all born a year apart, put our pillows in the freezer on summer nights.
Free from school, we would stay up past our bedtime
jumping on the king size trampoline bed in my parent's room.
There was a window unit that blew cold ac into the room
until it became an oasis within the hot house.
After a bath, my mother would weave my wet hair into a french braid down my back.
I wore my dad's billowy t-shirts to bed,
but some nights after the beach, just my swimsuit,
dragging sand into my sheets with me.
I spent much of the summertime playing at Upham Beach
until the sky bled fuchsia onto a flat Gulf of Mexico.
I think I have loved Upham Beach since before I was born
on the twenty seventh day in June, 1989.
No matter how far I wander,
that warm water is closer to me than my skin.
