Slow Summer

The war was delayed, so was the truce
that would have concluded it,
the settling of the refugees
was postponed, and in that August
the frontier tangled like our bodies
in love, sometimes following
the river, sometimes swerving
inland across the vineyards
toward the shadow of the cliff
-then we moaned, not knowing
if we wanted a child
or to be free of each other
forever, and the apples thickened
until the branches bowed.