The First Weekend in August, 2023
by Lady
Friday we had that slash of light
between the warm and chill humidity
The Early Augustness of August
in an Ohio whose green fields
pool in an oasis of the lake’s
memory, its capacitance – north here,
protected rim, Midwest. But looking
at the vantage points of Terminal Tower
and where they manifest around town
you can read the books of the bridges
of this city,
Cleveland.
Our Echinacea are a variety that shoots
up to my head and then falls over in
its own headiness from the heavy violin
that plays the sun and rain
that germinates the marigolds
gone to seed
returning om deux poof
Now I am a friend of both clover and
shamrock, the mint takes over the
patio, the never used rue, lavendar
like prone blue explosions happy to
bloom, dry out and end up in some
sache or forgotten left out for the gods
that which with the days,
grows in full sun,
partial shade
and darkness.
In the church of our living room
there was that slash of light –
the slash divided two on each side
of an overgrown golden Labrador
in his heaven on Earth, lifting his
eyebrows, groaning assent, tousling
the freshly vacuumed carpet, basking
in the banter of four primate friends
two cats and one plant.
Then the window behind your lazyboy –
it was still a gold beam and now it’s
over there, on that last window,
now a full rectangle
of light.
We must remember that we have
had such Augusts and that like dandelion
seeds, they float out from Saturday’s fairy day
firefly decanter and it’s here again, we’re in
perennial darkening Forest City and with
the lights turned out, the lacy loops
of grandma’s letters left over
in some folio, we eat ganache,
knife, peach.
– Lady, 8.5.2023