Michiganian mid-summer

Michiganian mid-summer,
duck lake's
sandless shore

and footpath into wood
cut long ago,
bermuda grass

creeps in and up
ankle tickling,
leafshadowed sun

decanted through the tress
mapped out
onto forest floor

through half-transparent
pillars
luminous

light in shade,
cricket
hum

choruses
the summer
familiar,

the trail
itself
a home,

sun-warmth
remembered
and present,

the tree-split
before
I was born,

rain-worn
resilient
wood


opening up
as though a
wooden volcano

whose fiery belly
holds only
moss,

the day
holds,
the path

motionless
and steady
in the shadow-light,

nothing
of the moment
as a river,

the lake-
shore locks
the water,

the termite burrowed
fallen tree,
amber wood-dust

haloed out around it,
sinking slowly
into earth.

I woke late one morning

I woke late one morning
and the air was hot and dry,
my tongue was chalked transparent
and around it coughed a sigh,

I rose through sounds of sunlight
children out about for hours,
pissed with the bath door open
and sacrificed the shower,

lit my first morning cigarette
from a pack I did not buy,
ashed in an empty beer can
from some earlier July,

and stayed sitting on the sofa
staring at the locked front door
for what might have been an hour
of not thinking it, before

I moved out through the kitchen
watching dust float through the sun,
and put on a pot of coffee
knowing I'm the only one.