summer lines

Josephine Clarke

crows make an amphitheatre of morning    everyone out of town     brightness flattens us, enlarges the blue dome     we all talk of shade     light through leaves     I cannot wake early enough for the birds’ dawn but hear spare song intermittent across the day     strips of silver thread between the hours    

there’s a hush on the roads     the accentuated planeness of this coast     a saucepan lid too hot to touch    soil turns to sand     rolling hills of sand     bougainvillea cauterises fencelines     shouting the sun to passing cars     we become a grid of hot tar     kids dance along footpaths     scorching their soles     beeline for the servo     icecreams are in season