Cicada shells and sunshine a southern summer brings.
Mason jars intended for storing crops through winter
line a porch filled with tea candles and hemp cords twined up
through the lids to the ceiling of a porch. Birds fly over

a view of the graveyard across the road where May is
buried year round. The grass, green now, is crisp as gin
and sharp as black umbrellas and hushes at a wet grave
he saw through a cracked window. Once pearls and suits were wet

by bubble bath romping, perfume, and drunken wine stains
in the corpse's own home. It happened in November
over a swirl of cream in black coffee-the cracking
of the glass. A sparrow's body on the porch outside

and the fearful pottery shattered on the white floor
around bare feet. Cicada shells were long buried but
night gin was still crisp in the face of new death and old
truths: death and taxes, morning breath and sharp hangovers

            are a part of the unraveling of becoming.