I Never Dreamed You’d Leave in Summer

Inside our embrace are our graves
The way inside the pit is the peach
No, we never dreamed that they would leave
But their leaving dreamed us—

Here on this chair—ants between my toes
Afternoon sun on even my back’s back
Trying to affix words still long enough to walk through

There on that couch—latex bands cocooning your calves
Tourniquet your marathon legs to woo blood to the joints—
To forge beyond the mind’s limit

It’s summer—each thing teems with itself
Fullest shades—loudest stank off the blooms—
Juice threatening to burst the skin of its apricot
I’m ready, it all seems to say
It’s summer—hummingbird drunk and restless plump—

We lose what we absolutely can’t

The bluest sky yet beckons our beloveds
Absorbs them back and beyond this realm
Leaves us nothing but beauty and stone fruit
My friend, you are preparing now for your 4th race

You are the blackest lady above the hill
Your stride a liquid confident from which the ink
Of this very pen takes its cue

We are not preparing to finish
We are preparing to continue