by Ian Mathes
June Makes us forget
Winter sends our
nerves to temptation.
It’s June, nineteen
thirteen and it will
always be for you.
The people gather below
God’s mountain. They,
the ones in white, forget.
Those cherry cheek
souls prance with wide
gates in the heat,
in the meadow's
trim grass, in
the tittering-to-the-touch dew
The congregation in
front has only just
arrived, expanding and
retracting their silk
umbrellas for some time.
The couple running,
they’ll run to horizon’s
breast to nuzzle it,
never actually reaching –
blind to the drop-off
of repetition
for they find their
rushing feet too interesting.
Those black spires
of sack suites and petite
coats, they hang
in share with idle
waddling
bound to their clothes.
Yet, you stare while
everyone else is occupied
with saddle shoe laces,
virgin gowns, those
consistently tasty
cucumber sandwiches,
and earnest talk.
You see fidgeting off frame.
You see Bellows
masturbating
in his studio.
You see me
in bankrupt Detroit.
You see the pocket
with the highest bid.
You are the green oracle
cursed to remember
the seasons that circle
like the buzzards in
the dead heat.
You are bound in evergreen
robes during the early
Midwest Summer.
You do not forget
the dog-day eats its
tail as you look
past these people
with sunken eyes,
kneeling and watching
the glass horizon
cycle through eternity.
A Day in June (1913) – oil on canvas painted by George Wesley Bellows. It is owned by the Detroit Institute of Arts and on display.