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Summer's smack


by Kitty Boots


straight-line winds whip the tendrils of gourds clinging
to the smokehouse,
zinnias defer and later give up, bowing with heavy heads

a staccato plop on a hydrangea leaf
they dance
water runs off the roof in a metal bucket

clouds clot the horizon all day, whispers of thunder,
listen

rescue the laundry from an additional rinse, they're dry
gather jeans and T-shirts by the armful
and still stop to smell them

one more walk around the gardens, edged just today,
crabgrass, sneaky, luxuriant, finds it's place
sometimes an asset, holding moisture in the ground, but greedy

a tiny jewel of a tree frog on every alocasia leaf,
a crack of thunder that shakes the house
ozone, a freshening, as the hair stands up on my arms



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