Back and Back and Back

Poetry

Photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash

June Dusk with me
in the fire-blue light
of the city — Metairie —
in the valley, we nap past
dinner bells with our backs
pressing against the trampoline.

“Evening, evening, evening,”
the Purple Martins sing
to an audience of back-
yards, from their power-
line perch to a boy whose prayer

is to be time-capsuled
in a dream buried
so deep it’s glory:

Carry us with you-all
back to Lake Pontchartrain
and across to the distant North –
but leave our bodies up-gazing
at the roof, the chimney,
the swing tree

of my maternal grandparents’ back
patio, sprinkler still pumping
over the dish soap slicked
slip n’ slide as Sunday
sets our bed.

June Dusk with me
beneath the pastel palette
sky; we lament the ascension
of our back-less wings.