August

I'll meet you in the August heat
under the blare of the air thickened
by a bright loud sun
which will jettison cottonwood blooms
and float them within its delicate currents
and eddies.

The air will become a warm jelly
which will engulf you
and your skin
and your shoulders and your mouth
which will smile.

And it will engulf me
and my shorts
and my “wifebeater” and
your dress, with a flower print on it.

And we are there
so it suspends us and floats us
out further
under its sweltering chest
also carrying the kite we built
for a moment or so;
just so high.

But mostly it leads our kite
to fondle the tops of the leaves
which turn and twinkle;
signaling to us
over the din of the slow summer glare
that they are now retaining our kite
as hostage.

So we stretch out
underneath
and I watch the pulse bob
in your neck and sometimes the tree
but you cleverly keep your eyes
trained on our offering
maybe thinking to the tree
laying on your back; bartering
with your hands tucked behind your head.

The air touches every part of us
and we lay tranquil
surrendered.

“Apefruit” is a series of “dark-romantic” poems.  “August” is not just a
month, the author says.  It is also an adjective.  Imagine, as Nuit
stretches over night; a slender black form with stars on her belly, that
on certain rich days of summer, a being such as Shakespeare’s Falstaff
commands the day.

But this character is heavy with heat and bulging with fecundity.
Imagine two lovers being stalked by the god Dionysus; who is disguised
as a summer day.  Imagine a setting where physicality, sexuality and
mortality melt together in a pool which could kill like the crashing sea
or just as easily permit one to gaze drowsily at its quiet power.

Oum Kheltoum:  Texas, ca. 1930 
Idi Amin Kneels