July

In undergrad I wrote a series of poems for each month of the year and here is July.

There’s a chill as 3:00 slips into 5:00
and we wait for Radiohead to upstage themselves at 7:12
because they’re new every time.
Yorke pulls back,
he warms in the light of himself.
The crowd participates,
resonating toes with heated crescendo’s
movement
movement
movement
The mama’s and the papa’s,
relive (cause they can’t stop confronting)
seventies culturalismo
at midlife under frosty moonlight.
The moon is never so clear as when it burns on skin
and if we let it burn
we can see through it.
I track glances 90° westward for the loved one they seem to have (misplaced?)
Crinkled
canvassed
in thick love at 8:20,
the time they realize lonely might be the same as alone.
Wrapped in smiles
percussive undertones pushing us up.
It’s not hot like it should be.
For the middle of July.
Not arid.
but we are dry.
Breath upon breath could warm
but
The Gorge
can’t encapsulate with what it doesn’t have.
We swim under stars,
over the glow that echoes onto the stage and
off the Columbia.
It runs and turns behind the basalt rock sculptures
that form the basin.
Seamless arches of granite fall in below the watery magic mirror.
Images move more than their possessors in the mercury flow,
forth
and
back
it rocks us.
Tangled and torn
we stick
flesh on fresh cotton
freshly soiled
from elephant ears and
earthy tones.
mutable
we continue diving into the dust we create.
10:00 and they might have stopped pushing sound
but
they had to
go
go
go go on
because we all want to be under midnight
in their music.

A playground.
We dance and chant in whispers,
come upon midnight in our cars,
We listen and wait for the next chorus,
but instead we are hit with the thump-thump-thump
in his trunk-trunk-trunk
1:00am
the camp doesn’t sleep
controlled by pop pushers and trance choreographers.
spin spin
mr. mr. volubilité.
Energy rushes up against him and her
They rebound in xtasy
because it’s been building up since 4:43 when
in line
they first met.
Ticketmaster just became the next best personals.
4:00am,
died down
zipped away
shutting off the volume.
collapsed into amnesiacs
7:22
up
walking with smoky breath
find our skins warmer
darker
the chill
gone.