Midsummer
from Plains, Pennsylvania
Firefly-lit, the field pulses. Our footfall, dissolved
in the tall grass, in midsummer’s swelling
hum, stalls on the brink. Blackbirds in a blue mass rise.
And sure that I would chase her, trace her stride
into the thick brush, and lost there, touch her knotted
fabric on a low branch, and as that branch
snaps, hear her dash back into a clearing, laughter
scattered in a squall of dandelion, straw bristling
my palms, a moment’s path expands in the green
blink, recedes, as the face, her hands, our bodies
topple the ground, tugs at my shirt, I take hold
of her waist and, inching down, taste the moist
blades stuck to her bare calves, when she stops, stands,
spins her back to the wind, unfurls a blanket.
Whimpies! Pigs in a blanket! Corn? Real Indian maize!
A thumb is sucked for the final gob of mayonnaise.
In lawn chairs gathered round, everyone conducts,
hands upon their stomachs, a choir of digestion.
Holy man that frangipane flan, Ange, was all the rage.
To die for! Fab, plain fab. Bottle rockets fizz
above the backyard fence. Grey kidneys of cloud
sag down. A nervous tic, how Grandma picks each
bit o’bacon glazed on the picnic table and feeds it
to her teeth? Sweet relief, some lemonade
the horseflies haven’t colonized. We must not fear,
states the radio. Those skies will clear. Think
positive, people. Here’s the tune that’s sparked a new
dance craze that’s bound to sweep the nation:
Page(s) 10
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The