July

July                   

                                                              

Standing in garden heat,                       

milky juice on my lips, 

delicate crunch in my ears as

I sink teeth gently into sweet 

golden flesh 

corn, 

just husked, sun-warm.

Deep red tomatoes bitten into like apples.

Vine fresh, warm juice 

traces my chin, then 

tomatoes again  

sliced, salted, sweet, acidic 

sting of summer

mingling with sweat. 

Yellow finches on sunflowers, snatching seeds 

Red canna lilies erupt from tropical leaves 

Blue larkspur quietly wanes 

Green foliage lush, hazy 

fleshy diet of humidity.

Coneflowers, lavenders, hushed and lazy;

Untamed tigerlilies of curling fiery 

dark-dotted bright orange leather;

Tithonia in vermilion velvet; 

Butterfly weed kneeling in fuchsia gladiolus, 

summertime of sunny magentas,

blood pulse of seasons.

Flowers blush, 

petal flesh

unfolds.

Bees drink nectar ecstasy

burrow snugly, 

rush and rest.

Mars shouts red from the south, 

cradled by Scorpio’s tail. 

--Diana Tigerlily