portrait

The heat is going to melt the grass,
a brown film that slides out away from the house
onto the broken pavement,
glass long fled,
shutters hanging on pitted steel
failing to conceal the wounds.
Coiled under the leaning wood of the deck,
bleached and dry
a hose still hangs off its pipe,
loose end trailing off into the lawn,
a sea of sand and rocks that cast off the sun,
scratch the mirrored air with mirage.

Husk of a woman is curled on the stoop,
tipped back and tired in the shade.
Inside, the boy cures in the rubber pool
too small to contain his frame,
the heat eating his flesh as it has for weeks
(twenty pounds in June).
Black brush crackles as she pulls it through
the tangle of sweat and static
and listens to him
drink the air
in gasping pants
that push water out onto the floor,
a miasma of salt and sweat
and the yellow scent of burnt copper
snaking out from the fridge,
easing out down the hall.

She slides a few feet further from the door,
the smoke of her cigarette
twisting and curling around her head,
and watches the quiet sand.