Summer wanted me naked--
and I showered in a thunder storm
just to tempt her.

Summer was the lover who used
my ribs like rungs on a ladder--
broke each step on her way
up to my lips-- where she poured
into me like rain gutters-- dead 
leaves ripped loose by a storm
stuck like scabs to my thighs --
like toad hand prints 
and sleepovers
and midnight.

Summer wants me waiting
but I have long been estranged
I only talk to her from the porch 
when the air is too thick for
me to walk away anymore-- when
the slit-grass scent of her neck
comes in whispers through the 
air conditioning-- and I am
cold and I want the humidity
to paint my forehead like an 
impressionist-- I have promised
to never be a muse again but
Oh! when she tells me to poise
and pulls my hair like green corn--

Summer wants me naked and hair
down to my knees-- tells me
to be her goddess again-- tells
me that she needs me
and that she knows that only
I can understand when she speaks
in cicada or wind chimes-- tells me that
winter made clothing for people
who have decided to settle on loving
themselves first-- she says that
I was never the one to wear
so many scarves-- she knows 
I look at myself naked in the mirror
before a shower-- she knows
that I'm not scared of my hips
anymore (or at least that I pretend 
not to fear them)--

Summer wants me downpour door-closed 
when she decides to hail-- held in 
the space between the double yellow
lines on the corn roads where 
I liked how to peel off ticks from
behind my knees--
Where I learned I could be naked
only in my own skin--
I learned I was watermelon rind 
and I never kneed her for
anything but the lust of fireflies

Summer sent me sea shells in the mail
and I made necklaces to bade off
the coming jaws of autumn.
I've never been ready to move
on from the kind of love 
summer teaches you to make
wearing nothing but your hips
in the bathroom mirror.

It was my mother who always told 
me not to take a shower in a lightning 
storm-- told me I was the kind of
girl who was bound to be a lightning rod.

Summer wanted me electric-- wanted me
rapture wanted me static and radio
garble-- and dead tree branches
across the stream that flowed
like lust and blood
and I stood naked in shower steam--
told her I was my own summer--
and sand washed down the drain.

Summer wanted me naked
and I dared her to touch
me through the mist of
the bathroom mirror-- 
shake me with thunder
but I know my hips now
and I know the cicadas 
go quiet for me.