Indiana, July

There are mint leaves twining in the garden,

Interlacing chicken wire,

Cool and sharp on boyish tongue and twixt expectant

Baby teeth of July afternoons.

There is dark soil clinging to bare heels,

Tracked on yellowed linoleum,

Returning the dispirited lavender-and-daisy print

To the earth, from whence it grew.

There is sulfurous blackpowder on the breeze,

Tense with compulsion to strike matches,

To spark fuses, to invoke firecrackers’ barking,

Heady crash of joy in the rising moon.

And shall I too ride July breeze,

Or be borne by children’s soles,

Returning on a final dusk and morning

To that garden, from whence I grew?

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