Lying on my back, summer, in my suburban backyard staring at the cerulean sky
its parade of clouds,
grass prickly around my ankles, wind billowing
the folds in my blue-green top, skinny shoulder straps tied in bows.
my father’s using the garden hose to spray
his roses, the curl of its snaking green body pulled taut.
It’s June and school’s out. He’s home earlier than usual from the hospital
tending to his roses like patients.
Summer itself smells blue-green, feels wide, like the wingspan
of the giant black crows whose bodies come to rest on the telephone poles.
It’s a crowd of insects, the clink of ice in tall glasses, the tinny melody
announcing the ice cream truck’s arrival after sundown.
Tonight I will sit on his lap while my father reads to me,
a raft of fireflies winking outside my bedroom window
shimmering blue-green summer behind my eyelids
closing like curtains to the good night.