August Journal: Monday, August 5, 2013

by Donald Mager

Afternoon pants uncontrollably.
Scummed over with mosquito larvae,
its water dish is low.  As okras’
spear-tipped fingers stiffly beckon to
monarchs and chameleons, heat hangs in
harsh layers.  The stream is almost dry.
Sluggish pools, shadowed below tree roots
dangling their thick calves over the bank,
swarm with black darts of frog spawn.  The heat
paw-pads around and around the dirt
radius of its ten foot rusty
chain.  It thirsts for shade and whimpers a
somnolent dirge.  Dirt’s baked adobe
wears thin cracks of fine heirloom china.