David Allan Evans

the Venetian blinds I dusted off for my mother on Saturday mornings, closing, opening them with the pull cord a few times just to watch the outside universe keep blinking, as the flock suddenly rises from November stubble, hovers a few seconds, closing, opening, blinking, before it tilts, then vanishes over a hill.

They live alone together, she with her wide hind and bird face, he with his hung belly and crewcut. They never talk but keep busy. Today they are washing windows (each window together) she on the inside, he on the outside. He squirts Windex at her face, she squirts Windex at his face. Now they are waving to each other with rags, not smiling.

Sitting perfectly upright, contented and pensive, she holds in one hand, loosely, the reins of summer: the green of trees and bushes; the blue of lake water; the red of her jacket and open collar; the brown of her pinned-up hair, and her horse, deep in the yellow of sunflowers. When she stops to rest, summer rests. When she decides to leave, there goes summer over the hill.