The Woman Who Turned Down a Date with a Cherry Farmer BY AIMEE NEZHUKUMATATHIL            Fredonia, NY Of course I regret it. I mean there I was under umbrellas of fruit so red they had to be borne of Summer, and no other season. Flip-flops and fishhooks. Ice cubes made of lemonade and sprigs of mint to slip in blue glasses of tea. I was dusty, my ponytail all askew and the tips of my fingers ran, of course, red from the fruitwounds of cherries I plunked into my bucket and still—he must have seen some small bit of loveliness in walking his orchard with [...]

Rain BY IAN POPLE A lexicon of words that were not said in childhood, and all of those that were, were said beside an upturned boat, lapped planking of the creosoted shed, were said into the wind on tussocky ground, by farm-rust vehicles. The buildings I could not complete without my father’s help, the wind in which I was at sea. Rain blooming in August that moved the land and over land toward the autumn, sliding through the gates of summer, feeling for the bone inside the wrist.

California Hills in August BY DANA GIOIA I can imagine someone who found these fields unbearable, who climbed the hillside in the heat, cursing the dust, cracking the brittle weeds underfoot, wishing a few more trees for shade. An Easterner especially, who would scorn the meagerness of summer, the dry twisted shapes of black elm, scrub oak, and chaparral, a landscape August has already drained of green. One who would hurry over the clinging thistle, foxtail, golden poppy, knowing everything was just a weed, unable to conceive that these trees and sparse brown bushes were alive. And hate the bright stillness of [...]

Of a Certain Friendship Elsa Gidlow  Odd how you entered my house quietly, Quietly left again. While you stayed you ate at my table, Slept in my bed. There was much sweetness, Yet little was done, little said. After you left there was pain, Now there is no more pain. But the door of a certain room in my house Will be always shut. Your fork, your plate, the glass you drank from, The music you played, Are in that room With the pillow where last your head was laid. And there is one place in my garden Where it’s best [...]