Poetry Friday - Kathleen Spivack

Because, sadly, no one has yet written the poem that enumerates the delights of Crystal Light Pink Lemonade with lots of ice on a 90-something degree day, I instead choose this poem, which nonetheless does feel like summer, among other things.

"Dust"

she wanted rain
as release from her longing

she wanted rain
sluicing her breasts after love

when the great thirst
filling, leaf-brown, swept

and she sobbed, o yes,
and the water beat down

and bent her, she wanted
violence, over-abundance

flowing in gullies
up over the lip.

she wanted rain
easing her like a child

while the trees, eager,
thrust out their roots:

the earth drank.
she wanted the dank

smell of wry dust,
soaked after the storms. she

sought virulent summer-
green satisfactions.