In the 1973 Ford LTD we took Highway Twelve
and headed toward the wild Russian River,
it was the summer of our final year of high school,
we were all so stoned that the world was perfectly defined
by goodness and realness and the opposite of those.
It was 98 degrees and even with the windows open
it was hard to breathe. Outside of Guerneville
we found the party—beautiful bodies jumping off
the cliffs into the deepest part, a raft of natural
naked women floating like an old cigarette ad
down the current. I was going to marry you.
Hours into the afternoon we swam to each other
and walked upriver. I remember thinking this
was what life was, and what I had always wanted,
outside, by the river, being pressed on a warm, flat
rock as if our wet imprint there would matter,
as if to say, I am holding on. I am holding on.