Sunbake

Burn

Auburn burn

sunbake redclay

sunbake

 

The sun doesn’t peer

it stares

and stares

 

Angry glare, so angry no one

dares

return it

 

We crouch behind colored lenses

sunbake photogrey

sunbake

 

“You look to the sun, for he is your taskmaster,

and by him you know the measure of the work

that you have done, and the measure of the work

that remains for you to do”:  thus Kinglake.

 

My daughter, ten or eleven

child of memory eternified:  “Dad, it’s hot.”

 

She hankers for icecream

sunbake milkshake

sunbake

 

Cooled by the malt

of mercy.