The Anchovies

tight in their tin like girls
at a sleepover, pillows touching
like nights in Kate’s basement
when I wanted to be home
but I shoved that down,
drowned in a game of pretending
to be both feather and board,
beyond my age and before it,
time canned in oil-thick memory.
You, away at camp, are inches
from forts and first kiss,
the timeline of our shared time
receding quick as seafoam on sand.
We are always dying and I want
to know you as well as I know
the word blueberry, its dusk
in my mouth sweet disappointment.
There is so much to know.
I slide my foot into your abandoned
rainboot, touch your footprints
and the edge of your age.
They smell of salt, like the anchovies
I ate for lunch, the tin empty, open.