The birds in our county were bees
and the bees were rough nuggets of light.
The green ponds we soaked in were trees
and the thunderheads’ bellies were white.
The sky was a bowl of pink grapefruit.
Your house was all threshold and eaves.
When a distance consumed and erased you,
the kudzu here sputtered and seethed.
Remember June’s scorchy pervasions?
The chill only sweat can achieve?
The fires at our feet were impatiens.
Through the legs of our shorts ran a breeze.
Wherever your luster has blown to,
wherever your ebbing proceeds,
there’s a hollow that’s filled you and known you,
a nowhere that saunters and preens.
In the sunflower’s eye stands a hornet.
In the stray’s empty socket, a flea.
In a brilliance where vision is forfeit,
my eye lays its hand on your knee.