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Gunshot Summer

The window mesh holds me together

only so much. I know I'm draining in the dark,

seeping as much as the humidity,

as much as the dog-breath kick-start summer

will allow. The heat channels through me

in violent vibrato. My rationality is singed.

I start to believe that the sounds

of wind, shingle-snap, and midnight blue

might burn through me like a bullet.

There�s the hole. I count

my impulses. I hide under the sheets

to sweat, to remove from myself

these small tremors, the rattle

of night in my wrists. Lying still is so hard.

Movement has the appeal of crackling

at the edges, triggering open

the scar in the sky where the moon lays,

tin-hot and trembling.