Eating Summer with a Pitchfork

A Poem

Photo by Minh Pham on Unsplash

Summer rusts in my salad bowl.
I cannot eat her with my tiny spoon
so I use a pitchfork
to devour her sour limbs.

This summer tastes of stale Netflix,
of a bucket of thermometers.
She is too fevered a season.
I pour her back into the greenhouse.

My mind has run out.
I pack up my chess set
and move into my body
to look for a partner.

Young gods are camped out
roasting souls over my heart.
I balance the chess board
on my sternum, offer them an exchange.

A bishop for a soul.
Two pawns for a god.
I win the match, up by a few gods
and down one soul.

Despite having lost my soul
I get the universe as a prize.
I kick it around
like a soccer ball.

Because in these difficult times
soul-less
or whatever,
we could all use more exercise.