Milk thistle, Queen Anne’s Lace, and other
nameless weeds have won the battle for the roadsides.
The flowering trees have had their shining afternoons,
and now they retire to green on green.

August stands at the deep end of the swimming pool,
where the water is still somewhat cool, gem blue.
Her shoulders are freckled and hunched and she glances
over the yard at the houses bleaching under the sun.

The young girl sits with her pale feet in the shallow end
like magnolia petals set adrift by the light breeze.
She is singing a hymn for the first day of June,
her small voice hums like bees through the air.

The chlorinated water is an ocean laid out between them.
A promise was made but not meant to be kept.
Something wordless, felt but not understood, smelling
like the sea but tasting like sweat, and she will sing of it

until her throat can sing no more.