Summer

Laura Lush
From:   Fault Line. Vehicule Press (Signal Editions, 1997).

Between the rows of corn, the gold pronouncements
of summer, we lie on the earth on our backs.

Tiny vagrants alone in our bodies.
Ragged children who have strayed from our homes.

Nothing insurmountable�the warm wet passageway
to the underground fort.

On either side, the earth moving its cow belly.
Slow song of grass yellowing.

The boys� crude beds of stones and twigs. Pyres
that later sink into the ground.

All of this to keep us away from the small pouch of marbles�
the limed eyes of dead birds glowing off sticks.

All things transfixed:
the chrysalides� luminous quiet, the stars� rubied prayers.

De-winged, leaves jostling across the sky.

What�s left?

Our bodies, the axis under the weight of copper sky.
Our belief that all things begin from our hands,

that even summer can be contained in a jar�
the one butterfly bright enough to last past autumn.

As our heads keep turning with the blue curve of earth
pulling legs, arms toward the fantastic rush of our lives.

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