Everything moves slowly here.
Even raising a glass to lips
comes in slow motion, beads of sweat sliding
along forearm into elbow crook,
fingers, lightest touch yet to grip,
sweat filling grooves and prints.
Lips part reluctantly
as if to retain the last moisture inside,
or dried together, hermetic,
as if the heat would turn them to dust,
small piles of useless nerve endings
parched, exposed roots,
cotton filaments, left in a bowl on the south porch,
unable to kiss
all summer long.
Here, we name shade endlessly, subtly,
with the precision of Eskimos describing snow,
great white of their winter,
great singe of our summer.
No music is written in daylight,
fingers in siesta,
hours dormant lying like dogs
panting, tongue out, throwing heat,
heaving chests, ribcages convulsing.
Porches ease transition in time with dusk,
shade slipping along floorboards.
We pour glasses, jugs beading droplets
on our arms as we lift them.
We dare to speak, part our lips risk a tear,
sing of the spirit, dormant in daytime,
come alive in darkness,
pick up the pace, cancel our curses
of the sun, worship the moonrise
like bats, happy to echolocate in cool darkness.
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