Hiking amid elms and maples
Full green and moist from the morning drizzle,
I remembered the overgrown paths,
The mossy boulders,
The stream of crystal, earth-cooled water.
The years I had been away faded like early-morning mist.
As I strolled toward the old, one-roomed shack
That used to be the secret childhood meeting place
Of my boyhood friends, I recalled
Our "girl-haters club" and the night I spent there
With my first lover when I was sixteen.
I hiked slowly amid the greens and cooling shadows
Still, sweat from the hike made my shirt cling to me.
I unbuttoned as I strolled, letting the breeze cool me.
Picking up a branch to use as a walking stick,
I traveled toward noon.
Soon I came upon that wooden house
And paused as I inspected it with my gaze.
The boards where gray with age, green with moss,
The panes, darkened by shadows, broken or missing
Turned its once-friendly facade into a toothless hag.
I had expected the pathway to be overgrown
With grass and weeds even more now than then,
But the way was clear.
Surely others had found this place,
Played here as I once had.
The gap-toothed windows uttered no sound,
Betrayed no movement.
The doorway, closed, seemed to beacon me forward,
And I went.
What had I to fear?
I was sure the house was empty.
It was then, around the door, I noticed
Footprints the rain had been unable to wash
Away because of the thickness of the trees
And other, more telling signs of who used this shack.
No children played here.
I opened the door and entered the hollow chamber.
When my eyes adjusted to the shadows,
Stabbed by the two-hour old
Western sunlight, I saw the old table,
The now-understuffed chairs littered with leaves,
The leaf-strewn floor and stone-cold fireplace.
I walked further inside as quietly
As I could on the squeaking floorboards
But my movements woke the stranger.
"Who's there?" a voice behind me called.
I turned and saw, half hidden by a chair in the corner,
The shadowed figure of a man rising.
"Just a hiker," I said.
He came from behind the chair
Wearing only blue jeans and socks.
"What time is it?" he asked sleepily.
"Just after two."
He yawned and stretched, scratched his hairy chest
And his groin unconsciously.
"What's it like outside?" he asked moving to his backpack.
"Nice. It stopped raining about nine o'clock."
"Must have been after I fell asleep."
"Nice ass," I said to myself loud enough
For him to hear as I viewed the tight denim
Of his buttocks. "Thanks." He faced me and smiled,
One hand cupping the crotch of his Levis,
His cock clearly outlined. I felt mine stir.
We embraced and kissed fully on the mouth
While I kneaded his mounds and he removed my shirt.
The heat of our passion set fire to our loins.
We discarded the veneer of civilization
With our clothes as each piece fell to the floor.
And grappling each other with primal fury,
We explored each other fully,
Inch by inch, orifice by orifice,
Throughout the growing afternoon.
As the sun began to set, our heat increased
And we spent long hours in darkness joined by our lust.
Well past midnight, as the moon fell earthward,
We dropped off into a deep sleep, still entwined together.
We woke with the sun in our eyes, embraced
Against the chill of early morning.
We smiled and dressed,
Backs turned in false modesty
And walked out of the little ruined cottage,
Side by side, down the overgrown path to the broken gate.
We lingered, unsure.
"Which way are you going?" I asked him quietly
As he hefted his pack onto his back.
He looked at me, smiled, teeth gleaming, hair uncombed.
"With you," he simply said and together
We walked down the road talking and laughing
As the sun climbed higher into the sky.
Soldiers
drained performing their duty -- 
The
summer we spent the beach house 
