Summer Day

1.

After the strollers and wives left the park,
the quiet track of a miniature train, and in
the pond’s rushes swans resting on water,
we climbed the empty amphitheater's hill,
wooden pews and warm box lights chilling,
we sat in the pressed grass, cagey, afraid
someone may interrupt our innocent attempt
at movie-style romance, a bottle of wine

beneath the open and unsuspecting stars,

and your hand in mine, your bare shoulder,

my fondness then, the peace of mind I had,

to pass my lips atop your skin, to pull your
clothing until it fell, build that inertia, even in
public, until we were both drowsy with love.

2.

Summer comes again. My apartment

isn’t ready to cope. I sit on the porch

and hallucinate. Remember our car idled
on the gravel rise of the college’s burger
shack, as we waited for a late night
ice cream cone, windowlesss, music
beneath us, the air of a city neverminding
it’s bare-chested sprawl across the humid
earth, when we lit and tossed cigarettes
in the wind, you singing, smiling across
darknesses, your thigh a hand rest of mine,
your hair whipping with the highway home.
Where are you? Moving below the sun,  

feet on the dashboard, smiling to someone.

3.

Blowing through cobwebs, on my knees

in the garage, because a summer storm

knocked the little flame of the pilot light

out, and you would be on your phone

beside the racket of the air conditioner

when I would promise to fix it and return

to the deep red sheets of our bed I bought
for us when you first moved in with me. But
that unbearable damp. Bugs swarmed
the one bulb, landed on my neck to lap
sweat. I did it, opening the wooden barn
doors, flashlight to the shadows, bic lighter
in hand, that’s what men did, I guessed,
inured of lesser things by the heat of love.

4.

If I knew there’d be rainbows sometimes

when we washed the dog with the hose,

she’d flap and swing until the array came,

we’d have gone to the dog run more often.

Mud caked, sweating in the open-air pavilion,

unable to snag a photograph, your grey
athletic shorts, yellow tee-shirt from college,
hair pulled up by a band, afraid how other dogs
brandished their teeth, fought, growled. Good,
the trainer told us, let her learn. But that last
drive to obedience school, perfect empty
highway of a saturday morning, just week two,
choke chain in hand, your eyes, so we turned
around and drove, laughing, back to the park.  

5.

Now, I’d never touch the foil for fear
of waking those summer swans. I’d never

twist the muselet over the wine cork

or pour our tiny portion out in cups.
If the wildness could only keep,

an eternal youth for that animal,

if our fireworks took a hundred years

to reach the peak of their climb before

they popped, I would still be sitting beside

you in that park, looking for the watchman

to try and kick us out. A blanket, this time,

and a proper basket, this time, and all

of summer to dutifully taste the sparkling

pressure that emerged out that bottle .

Reviews

[h d e rushin]

your poems cannot be raced thru to the end G. So much happened in 3 that 4 became the consequence of it. And 5, recapitulation of course, but borderline time travel with no psychotic episodes that modern poetry has led us to expect.

And your so right my friend. Love and thus , love poetry is seasonal. Three years from now who will we love? In poetry time, it really doesn't matter......Your amazing....dana

[LilyVice]

I don't have the proper words to review this piece. It is scintillating. It is as it is, bringing me to a time and space where I don't belong, an unwanted onlooker watching lovers on a summer's day.