To look backwards is to die.

That is what she said to you as your arms twisted around her waist, wheels throttling over red dirt.

Her arrival had been miraculous.

She had simply risen from the indigo water, like a sea creature, fully formed. Wet. Storming. Ready to challenge every single thing said to her. She reminds you that it is an Ottolinger summer; power is the only shared thread. You have no choice. In head-to-toe willow green, you move like her now.

You are liquid, your hair slicked back

in the future's crude oil.

You can see the collapsing of architecture; there is no difference, the butcher, the bank, and the ballet. You are ready. You will not slow down. And now you

truly understand that old Greek myth;

You will never look back.

It is an Ottolinger summer.