The apartment pool is finally open after so many weeks of cold, wet days here in New York. One group stakes out a table early, and outside our window we hear marathon drinking and hilarity from the morning through to the evening. We are good sports about it, but barely. Dozens of toddlers and children sport about on their floats and pool toys, with plenty of splash wars and Marco-Polo competitions. The twenty-somethings oil themselves up and jockey for position on the lounge chairs, sporting the latest in skimpy swimwear.

Summer has its sport –
Thin clothes don’t cool fireworks
Set off by eel and fawn

The breast diseased, careens toward metastasis. What once nourished life now feeds ruin. Removed, it clears the way for the bowstring to pull clear and full. Power now, strength now. What was weakness becomes the gift of the Amazons. Women warriors.

The Fall: lightning cracks –
Golden dust of fire ants –
The Spring: tea rose blooms.

Bags of mulch and fertilizer, hosing down the lounge chairs, pool cleaning, grill cleaning, filling the gas can at the pump, adjusting the mower’s choke: All around our apartment building the ingredients and tools line up that will let us put Memorial Day weekend on the grill. 

Summer warms its stove –
Recipes for orange blossom
Feed the longer days