Summer Nights
A poem bubbles in me,
peroxide on an open wound;
I smother in the humidity
of dreams abandoned
-limp as sun-bleached hair.
Childhood summers melt together
like crayons left in the yard.
When I was eleven,
summer nights were hide-n-seek
and sneaking into the garage
with a boy four years older than me.
The warmth of his hands
was like the first taste of
grapefruit sprinkled with sugar.
Days in the pool
gave birth to constellations
of freckles
that led us nowhere.
Summer tears burn
worse than bare feet
on hot asphalt.
They never evaporate;
but boil in orphaned fantasies
that summer love
could last a lifetime.
Now the nights are sticky
too sticky even to fuck,
so we lie, nude
barely touching
aching for relief.
Longing vibrates from deep inside;
the reedy resonance of a Native flute.
There is beauty in desire,
and in reaching for each other
in the tepid minutes before sunrise.
On the front porch
cigarette smoke curls.
June Bugs cling to the screen door
and hiss when it slams.
They remind us how to laugh,
and Perseid showers us with new dreams.
- Danna HobartÂ
