Summer

The smell of detergent washes through my hands
the screen door makes it look
like the air beyond the vents
is a cumulus of flies

Laundry hangs like the dead
moves softly with a breeze
but stays mostly still
missing the rain that reminds of applause

Couples perch on branches like birds
sometimes they come up through the woods
to walk by the river stained with rat prints
and what the kookaburras left behind

Sometimes I think of you
Softly, softly
where the branches dried
brittle fingers in the undertow.