By Emma Galloway Stephens

Summer in its fullness dreams of autumn.
Its emerald optimism is a scrim
that shimmers in the heat. The beat
of wings above the rotting roadkill,
white bones blazing in a sunny hell,
predicts the golden death that is to come. 

The red earth hates the wet but rainless boil
that cooks creatures, gardens, crops,
uncoils the creeks. Heat feels like hatred, 
relentless, sterile, futile, gulping good,
and greedy in its gaze. In summer, air is water,
crushing lungs in hazes running aimless

on the crooked asphalt strangling the earth.
Always autumn brings rebirth.
Trees drink the heat that dyes their hands red,
bleeds them dead. Redemption falls like death
on trees, and rises like the smoke of burning leaves, 
like golden wheat, like dry, cold air. 
                                      Like mercy.
                                                        Like prayer.

About the Author

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