It’s so hot the hornets are drowning themselves.
In the sky clouds hang low and puffy-chested,
reminding me to take in the laundry. I watch
the trees tremble, then in a slip of lightning go inside.
A burst of cool air, the floor’s damp with it.
Leaves are tapping the windows as if pleading
to be let in, unsafe where they belong.
But I don’t want to. I hear the wind moaning
like a wounded animal and I’m frightened by dying
things. Their failing limbs and mundane stink,
how their desperation makes you complicit. In these
big blue hours I know I have little to worry about.
This is another summer in the rest of my life.
Stacey Yu (she/her) is a writer and reviewer based in San Francisco. She once memorized 400 digits of pi, for which she won an apple pie.
Eunoia Review 