It's unruly in mid-summer. Lovebirds quiver and ignite astride our grimly thinning shadows. The light rain is replete with the smell of belly-dancing and the sound of fingertips alive as tesselating birds in search of a peckable feast.
          How beastly (we infer) just marginalia and strings reverberating to the frolic of some daydream weaver's frond. Reduced to joystick jubilation. Tenderness the pink of things not really even born. How colorful! I can't go on like this outraged by every glint of the brandy drinker's eye, swooning at the limberlost, waiting for a throng of loved ones to march in, pull the IV out and feed me to the sound of one hand clapping.
          Don't look now, the summer bride has entered the gazebo thinking this might be a film noir ready to rewind. Swaying like a wan Noguchi she cuts the sky in half and as the bells begin to peel screams out “diaphanous!” The rainbows, mesmerized, bow euphemistic heads drinking deeply of the dresses never to be worn again. Their innocence abhors the diamond cutter's secret feasts. The ladies blush. The fresh-cut orchids are too opulent to speak.
          April's cruel—that's not a joke. Young bodies scattered so pell-mell you can't just leave the rest to science or squeegee up the pain. It's no use checking for a pulse. These caves are too alive with bats to lead straight out of hell. But does it have to rain so hard in mid-July?

    All in an awful tangle the countryside unpeals and with a splurge the zebra rots straight down the spiral stairs.
          The hidden cameras go "ping".
And we're left heaving in the silence of some momentary waxwing.