(A poem about summer that I wrote so that I could apply for a network.)

And there’s something about summer
Something in the dizziness and the flames
In the popsicles dripping, coating
Your fingers in their sticky mass
Disgusting - you think - delicious

Something in the heat and the blur
In the tall of the grass reaching, reaching
Crawling against your knees and you fall,
grasp the dirt in the palm of your hands
Don’t check underneath your fingernails

Something in the bug bites and the scrapes
In the tails of the comets your nails
Carved into flesh, constellations of red
“Stop scratching.” Your mother says
In that way mothers do, you obey
Ember galaxies fade back into skin

Something in the humidity and the warmth
In the heat that isn’t simply felt, but known
Languid murmurs, sweltering skin
And the taste of molasses
Sweet against your tongue
But so bitterly slow

And there’s something about summer
That you cannot name but it
Nestles in the crook of your mouth
and spills through the part of your lips
“This is it,” it slurs, “you are here.”
--

“There’s a certain beauty to it.”
You tell me with eyes as full of wonder
as the tides sweep underneath us -
an apocalypse embodied.
“There’s no beauty to this.”
I reply with a voice of thunder
but the resolution of rain
You smile, don't respond
And I can't help but think
Of course someone like you
would find beauty in disaster