_47. I was young once

On the last day of July I’m left
with just the word “lightning.”
Nowehre does it thunder like the Midwest,
nowhere is so bold or simple.
I want to ask James Wright how he knew
the branch would not break,
or if he was wrong.
How does the rock remain,
the dirt keep its secrets in darkness?
I crumple in the heat of July days
but want its warm nights
in Illinois parks.
I would lose 30 days of sunlight for
those nights back again,
moist and enabling as a postage stamp.
The horizons that shimmer and blink
from existance at sunset,
the thunderheads, fields, ditches,
and cassettes for the drive home.
Cicada, windmill, engine block,
asphalt, loam and river.
The yielding, giddy dark
and the face of a love, the one I nearly
forgot, lit by the light of the moon.