Axial

Ramdas Ware, "Garden"

The sky’s bleached from the heat; its radiance melts
asphalt, making licorice ridges where the curb joins
the edge of the road. The earth’s dipped a shoulder
towards the star that keeps her in its thrall, and it’s
the season when we small children clinging atop her
broad curve will burn. A million million times we’ve
tugged on her, tantruming red-faced: “give me! give
me!” and she’s indulged us, bringing clover to bloom
in spring rain, letting us suck nectar from its florets.
We forget how our tarry gravel roads make her itch,
and the same shoulder tilted towards the sun could
shrug us off, our bones calcined to feed her flowers.