Thursday, July 3, 2008

I had forgotten how suffocating summer can be, how it creeps up and over shoulders,
backs,
hands,
extending tendrils with feigned nonchalance
allowing us the choice of un-seeing.

she found me lying beneath a tree, twirling fingers in the air
half-heartedly mapping an escape route, losing the words as soon as they passed my lips.

of course I knew:
if I allowed summer to devour me whole there would be no more pretending that I wasn’t already disappearing
that I couldn’t feel myself pulled by the suction of your absence,
your maybe-never-being,
your bending of time and space and truth and truth and truth.


I’d rather let what was left of my frame, sinews, and bones descend.
a sadder, softer exit.


the epitaph would read
here she lies,
swallowed
by the 7th of June.

the heat stole her
without much struggle.