poetry archives return!

dredged this one up-- don't think i've ever posted it -- tell me if i have, and i'll replace it ;)

The Dog Days of Summer

“Don’t answer the door while I’m gone.” She’d say,
fastening a name tag to her uniform just before
grabbing her keys and a quick kiss from each of us,
leaving the faint scent of her perfume lingering
just in front of my face.

My sister (in all the maturity of her junior high years)
liked to watch The Young and the Restless at 10:30.
I liked the Price is Right better staying in front
of the TV just long enough to see if anyone won the showcase.

Afterwards, I would retreat to my bedroom with a book
and the dog (if she could be convinced), emerging later to find lunch.
She and I usually ate hot pockets, ham and cheese mostly.
Sometimes, I would ask her what happened on the show.
Did Victor really die? Was Cole really Victoria’s brother
after they’d been sleeping together for months?

Other days, my sister’s best friend would come over,
and they would eat lunch on the roof.
Not for any reason really, other than they weren’t allowed.
Those days, I didn’t find out what happened to Victor and the rest.

Once, I scrambled up with them, swinging scrawny summer legs
the few feet between the roof’s edge and the courtyard wall.
I didn’t stay long, quickly bored by talk of boys I’d never met,
teachers of classes I hadn’t taken yet.
On the way back down, I slithered
off the edge of the roof on my stomach, feet dangling,
searching for the cement wall to put my feet on.
I slipped before I found it, feeling nothing but air
and the glance of the wall across my back as I fell
into the flowerbed. Startled, I lay there
trying to find my breath again. I reached
back and felt the broken skin along my back, but no blood.

The fall and I must have made enough sound to draw the attention
of two seventh graders on the other side of the roof.
I rolled to my side to find they were leaning over me,
concern quickly turned to ridicule once they realized
I had missed my own footing.

Left alone when they disappeared to the roof again,
I sat up and brushed my arm where
dirt from the flowerbed and shame from the fall clung
to my t-shirt like cicada shells on the backyard fence.