Partial Seasons

I. the girl, curious under glass
at her own preservation –
a ceiling all spittled
with rain,
and the leaves!

the trees undressed themselves
to share with her the modesty –
pressed petals to the pane of glass,
the lips to a lover.

II. the wrinkled warrior
with swollen wave eyes
that whispered older summer:
years of green-grass tumble,
bodies sighing through the weeds.

and if a body catch a body
(arms pricked among the reeds),
our bodies only every body,
a smattering of seeds.

III. the reaching is to the fall –
the parallels and all the ways
she rations what is left;
bereft of any more.

choking only on the spit,
the fire lit, the coal-blown grass,
the blackened face, the moonlight mist,
we learn to rise when summer splits.

IV. the boy's smile
melted in the fragments –
the jumble of concrete
where city sidewalks freeze.

giving a berth
to the soggy underfoot,
(he's scoring symphonies)
down tickling throats
that run with slower souls –
the sighing of soles
that tourists wore thin.

the city sighed salty
with its blue ocean breath
with the sting of the lights;
with the music still left.