poetry sunday: july

(This Sunday's poetry selection, one day late due to Fourth of July weekend celebrations.)

by Laura Kasischke from Space, In Chains (2011)

July, that lovely hell, all
velvet dresses and drapes
stuffed into a hot little hole.

July trampled by the sweat and froth
of panicked circus animals.
You think, Romantic,
overload. She
exaggerates. Melodrama, menopause, but no:

I was there, when the pale words, like light on a wave.
Where the forgotten ancient music was still played.

The lovers, gone. Their beds unmade. Their
pets in cages. Where the primal. Where the blur.
Where the tamed

bear, the injured bird of prey, maddened nocturnal animals
roaming the streets in the heat of day.

And that girl there:

The chaplain's little book of her, slammed
shut, as she
sits on the front stoop
painting her nails.
Sipping lemonade.
Just that age
when the cool, empty vestibules
are still behind you
in which one day
such desperate bargains
and trades will be made.