Summer of Anger

Muted sweetness stings the roof of my mouthwhere I burned it earlier at dinner because I was tooimpatient to wait until it was cool enough to eat.They say to stay away from melon somethingdigestive, but the juice of August has coveredmy mouth like sweaty cotton sheets. Square incisorsmunch on a stray almond-shaped seed before Iswallow the fullness of summer’s last, rounded days.

This is the summer of anger. August is a wasp, sharpand agitated and looking for someone to offend it so it cansink its poison-tipped stinger into soft flesh while the cicadasplay Debbie Gibson’s “Electric Youth” on repeat. The sun andthe dirt and the concrete and the bugs and the people get redderand drier and angrier and cover themselves in spikes like a giantagave in glorious, 20-foot bloom before withering into a softbrown, receiving pile telling stories of going to State.

This is the summer of anger and it prickly pears aroundthe back of my neck and sits over my head like a footballhelmet and the only relief is immersion in cool, dark waterwhere my legs kick unseen and the dull, tangy sweetnesslingers on the back of my tongue with the rest of thebeautiful things I remember from another season.They wait for the right moment to reseed, to scatter intothe brittle, beaten grass and resurrect as wild, neon blooms.