Reading

Summer writes itself.

A rough draft of green hills

crossed out by stone walls,

margins scribbled with brambles.

The wind rewrites the sky.

People walk slower, their voices low

as if the air has thickened with commas.

But it’s the river I think of most,

question marks curving

through the fields,

holding every reflection with such precision:

the heron, the leaning oak,

the lone rowboat moored in the reeds.

The water reads them all

backwards, forwards,

slipping into the sea

with a memory of stones.

I watch the light linger

on the last line of the hills

as the sky folds itself shut.