okay, all right:
we have understood you, July. you are dripping down our fingertips and you are sliding
down the spine; you have dug your hands into the upper Midwest at last and you have
made us respond, visceral. your tongue laps at our ribcages and we shift hotly,
uncomfortable. you know that we want you and we sing your praises but you are oppressive:
we wipe you off the skin.
you tempt us with your colors and your sounds; you show like a peacock, your brilliant blues
and greens; we kneel in adulation and we lift our faces to you. but when you are not looking
we turn our faces to the grey.
your sensuality is so blatant, July, that you bore me. I sit on the sidewalk and I watch your
flowers preening; my mouth is twisted in a sneer as I rip a petal into shreds.
sweat skitters down my back, down my forehead, between my breasts and between my legs.
you are like a tango dancer; you held me close and made me wet, and I felt your sticky finger
tracing lines across my neck; you bend me back, arching.
I smell you, July, and you smell of decay. you trick us with your colors, your tongue languid
down the spine, but I know you, and you are rotting. your colors are smug and lurid and I know
that you are dying.
you fear October in the air and you are furious and you turn on your charms. you beckon your
legions to the lake and you bask in their sharp relief, but you know that you are grasping at
August and September as quickly as you came.
you make the lake flat and white, you make the sky empty and white. you wield your thunderstorms,
July, like a toy, but you know you are impotent: the air pulses hot and bright around you, and you
are beautiful but you bore me; you tremble, you shiver, and you barely exist.