Right Before Summer’s Arrival

From inside the unseasonable heat

& softness of the body’s first

afternoon opening

shoulders shimmer

swollen school yard laughter

the slow moving creatures

orbit one another

as if our future selves know this

to be the beginning

of our slow descent

into what we had always known

to lie just beyond

the page its hushed doors

beyond the cool

walls of a palm

pressed over our eyes

trying to delay

the elastic snap

of vision’s

membrane & still the adults

are forgetting how

our eyes open into one

another how ears too those hidden

gaping orifices unfurl

the bone’s slow swelling

until we peek

over the descent

& fall

into the water

melon mouth of

summer.