time has passed. time has roped around the summer sun a noose.
dulling into an insipid tremor,
into a dull night that flags behind
the day, clinging on to what it can:
the edge of the grass, the
corner of the room.
spreads, rests; every day,
it seems, the clouds presents themselves
across the table of the sky;
laid out to be feasted & devoured,
   soaking with the lilac purples and, for dessert,
a red clementine sky.

Yet the man in the kitchen, after
a day of work,
humming over beets
                (a dripping hot crimson),
waits to sink his teeth into the
dinner plate;

behind is the
sun’s last reactive flinch to
her brief encounter with night.