July, Dusk

July, Dusk

Swatting through the thickness of the buzzing
trees, the bruise behind us, we wobbled out across
the knobbly backbone of the hill, ankles rocking

on its vertebrae. As swallows in freefall took tiny
lives a smudged, hot-blue haze bandaged the patch
-work, softening the gasp. I saw a green woodpecker

crash like a tiny olive wave across the slope below as
we scaled the second, snake-skeleton path. Upon the
gentle upper reaches, lullaby-heavy from their woozy

list, we saw, over tipsy undulations, a sticky, saturday-
afternoon-boiled-sweet sun blot like blood on elastoplast,
parching and suckable, a strawberry burning in cream.