It's Still Life

Hay Brown

this cruel heat that frames us,
this persisting dry,

return me to English summers,
the scent of chlorophyll,
and the sight of dew’s lustre.

he longs to mow stripes again
through grass
gone hay-brown.

this persisting dry
is an old man’s cough.

I remember the pink glow
of the hydrangea,

it filled the window,
axed the sun
of its heat
from the sitting room.

and the crow waits for me

to refill
the birdbath.