August
Moon of the Black Cherries
Stretched out like this on the sand,
my body browns,
while my mind circles around
your moon and the browning of cornstalks.
These ears have listened all summer
to my Indiana garden.
Now they absorb the sweet roar of the Pacific.
You opened school and closed summer vacation,
and too soon snow slickened the roads
and made that big yellow bus
that hauled me to school slide and threaten
to slip off into the water down River Road.
But now I know you are as fair as April
who promises flowers and warm skin
but sometimes delivers a blow
that crashes houses and sucks up trees
before keeping those promises.
Black cherries are the sweet ones.
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