A blood-shot moon’s heat-
stunned and staggering
through blue, unmoving
air, and all things are held
close to ground, including
a wind that barely brushes
quiet queues of creeping
pink and purple phlox.
Even tides appear like
ephemeral flares that
might ignite these tinder-
dry nibs of grass. That
we could, like the nuthatch
rifling through the feeder,
carry morsels of sunlight
and bury them inside the
crevices of trees or under
serpent scales of bark and
retrieve them when, deep
in winter, the world’s all
knitted up and held, dead-
still, in quilted darkness.
