cruel, cruel summer

either the postagestamp-bright inflorescence of wild mustard or the drab tassel of prairie smoke, waving its dirty garments either the low breeze through the cracked window or houseflies and drawn blinds to spare us the calid sun one day commands the next to lie down, to scatter:      we're done with allegiance, devotion, the malicious idea of what's eternal picture the terrain sunk, return of the inland sea, your spectacle your metaphor, the scope of this twiggy dominion pulled under crest and crest, wave and cloud, the thunder blast and burst of swells this is the sum of us:      brief sneezeweed, brief yellow blaze put out so little, your departure, one plunk upon the earth's surface, one drop to bind the dust, a little mud, a field of mud the swale gradually submerged, gradually forgotten and that is all that is to be borne of your empirical trope: first, a congregated light, the brilliance of a meadowland in bloom and then the image must fail, as we must fail, as we graceless creatures that we are, unmake and befoul our beds don't tell me deluge.      don't tell me heat, too damned much heat