Summer’s Eve
For ES
Here are the pink hydrangeas,
In the neighbor’s garden.
All spring we’d seen only
White ones, & irises, beyond
The picket fence. Now, on summer’s eve, as
Tiger lilies come: this new thing.
Just like you asked for.
After Reading Pushkin
The pink sun inches
Down,
Tinting the white plates
In the cabinet,
The ceramic mugs.
A stray cat sits
On the front porch.
All summer
He has
Toted this wound
On his head
Like a small cup
From door to door.
Waiting for something.
Dusk
Mosquitos cart blood
To the far corners
Of the day. Bats
Spray out like hosewater
From the gables. Like this,
The weeks have passed.
Clouds flat, gray,
Opaque. Pressed
Against the earth.
Nothing giving an inch.
Justin Belote is a graduate of the VCU MFA poetry program. He lives and teaches in Staunton, Virginia.