Summer’s Siesta |by Michelle Gilliam
The street ends in a circle
with cypresses, my neighbors are blind
to my backyard glowbug summer.
Hammock swags till the moon stops,
sips wine under dusky umbrellas outside.
They wonder and sit on the creek’s ledge.
A nameless bird sits on the maple branch
tiny feet shifts circling–
a hawk peers and clasps outside
wings freeze from a taloned neck in blindness.
Her singing voice stops,
in the heat of summer.
Sun sets faster, closing doors on summer’s
nectar drops on terracotta ledges
then onto the soil, stops
to melt into black mulch orbits.
only memory keeps us from color blindness
when they fade outside.
I can tell inside,
the shadows are longer, some
throw a chill, worse than a blindfolded
plunge from a pool’s edge
on my half-ring
smile. Living light forces a halt
drawing attention to get me to stop
reading my favorite book at my bedside
and nap instead. I dream of a diameter spin,
downward into the center and find Summer
smoking a cigarette on a tire’s edge,
convertible open to the sun. Winter is cataracted.
Sunglass’d Summer blindingly
asks me if I want a ride,
from a mossy radio. I hop on the sill
over the door and jump in. Outside
we shop at the garden center. Summer
got a good deal on crepe myrtles. Drove to a cul-de-sac
and parked. Blinds of blooms unroll to the side
where we stop, take clothes off. Summer
jumps from a cliff into a reflecting lake, I dive into his watery ripple.
Michelle Gilliam 