Atmospheric Embroidery

Wads of ice-cream glisten on Route 6.
We stroll into summer, thoughts thrust into a bramble

Oriental bitter-sweet pocking the hedges,
Fists in pockets, lemonade dripping from a child’s hem.

In Boetti’s embroidery, in his mapping of the world
Everything is cut and coupled,

Occult ordering – silk and painted steel
Sun and electric moon, butterfly and naked man.

In The Thousand Longest Rivers
The Nile is the hardest water

Then comes the Mississippi – Missouri.
Once we lived by brilliant waters

Suffered the trees’ soft babble,
Fissures in magma.

Already its August –
Season of snipers in the heartland,

Season of coastlines slit by lightning
And smashed bouquets of the salt spray rose.

Now I think it’s a miracle we were able, ever
To put one foot in front of the other and keep on walking.