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.