Jaime’s Summer
by Jared Pearce
It should begin along the lines: sorrow,
red moon above naked maples, only a sole
lamp lit in the house;
gather like the late August rains,
like the heat in September, the folds
in the living room drapes;
slip away from touch, see
how the spiders lift themselves
into the earth, into infinity;
without her feeling the angel’s
wing brushing her feet it
should be felt; it should be
real as the locust, its singing
voice marked only by its silent,
worn-out self clinging to a tree;
long as a river, charged
as a river, as a chicken hawk
owning its powers
it should float, strike
in its ferocity
to tear into a hunger.
