The Fifty-Second Summer
The mail is junk, as expected,
and I walk back to the house alone.
Blue chicory begins to fade
at the edge of the road, under dust.
A starved cornfield flows in the wind
like the sound of water, gathering
to rush from a dark sky,
but this sky is faded as the chicory.
In sun the heat is a weight,
the shade as dim as childhood.
I think, July.
Jarflies hammer at the locks.
