Back Then

for Suzie, again

It was always the dream part
of summer, the lit moment

that persisted.

We said, “Shall we eat
the soft skin under the rind?”

We said, “Leave the mud-green
tadpole where it lives.”

Much of the day was spent
skimming the deep end,

which meant we were barely
human: amphibious, mythical,

more and more shimmered.

Now she seems like time itself
before time went wonky,

before things happened
we didn’t intend to happen.

But there she is, under the sprinkler’s
arcing triumph in her

psychedelic two-piece. The sky,
well it’s summer, so it’s impressive,

the grass, smelling of tea,
our feet, tough as a dog’s, river-clean.

We didn’t think we should stay
that way: loving each other

without knowing we loved.

It’s strange now, because she’s gone,
but still, on the longest days,

down a barefoot road
in a messy house,

she waits on my call.

Dion O'Reilly’s debut collection, Ghost Dogs, was runner-up for The Catamaran Prize and shortlisted for The Eric Hoffer Award. Her second book Sadness of the Apex Predator will be published by University of Wisconsin's Cornerstone Press in 2024. Her work appears in The Sun, Rattle, Cincinnati Review, Narrative, The Slowdown, and elsewhere. She facilitates private workshops, hosts a podcast at The Hive Poetry Collective, and is a reader for Catamaran Literary Quarterly. Most recently, her poem "The Value of Tears" was chosen by the poet Denise Duhamel as winner of the Glitter Bomb Award.