Poem of the Week: Alfalfa Summer

Aug 15, 2024

Alfalfa Summer

Sun glistens slow and rich through the blinds and it

Is a complete breakfast; it is yolk and syrup and tart juice,

And I am left satisfied.

Some mornings there is music—there are Tuesday sonatas

And Friday arabesques and scales galore that clamber

Up the sleepy stairs and into my dreams.

When the day is still new and untested the world seems

Ripe with adventure and paper chains dangle to the floor

And marbles scatter on the laminate.

Thirsty pavement and sweaty palms and adrenaline

Send me flying around the block, the kind of unstoppable you

Only get to feel when you’re a kid.

We scarf down graham crackers with peanut butter and

The door doesn’t kiss our backs as we evaporate

Peeking under leaves for fairies that definitely exist.

Sprinkler patched with duct tape, toes plunged into cool grass

Popsicle stains, coexistence of upstart moon and exhausted sun

In those infinite sparkling summertime twilights.

The sweetness of alfalfa in the air, the bitterness of rotten tomatoes to come

Circling lunchboxes in shiny magazines,

That back-to-school scent of carpet cleaner and wood shavings.

Where is that little girl of the tea parties and uncouth dancing

In the hose spray; who knew that the Tooth Fairy wasn’t real but still

Wrote her a note every single time?

She’s buried deep now, next to the doll dresses and

Colorful braces and the deflated kickballs—

But the sweetness of those summers stays.