Aubade with House and Burning Barn

COHORT 5

All my Julys dissolve like sugar in my teeth

and I am searching for something to wrap 

my fingers around, a story I can believe in.

Listen—what’s true isn’t always pretty.

Meaning what’s false isn’t ugly, either.

What summer limns into—prickle 

of chlorine at the bottom of the pool, 

blackberry juice slicked on our palms, 

the coral we blunted on our lips like

an act of destruction. Summer, another 

small mercy. The fact is every day 

brings us nearer to our hour 

of extinction. Last night in a parking lot 

fluorescent with gasoline we waited 

for the future to architect into being, 

the floodlights bulbing blue in the

low fields beyond. The radio drowned in static.

Voices on the wire ribboning like jellyfish 

in a current. I jellyfish into the fossilized dark, 

dream of friction and heat. Sputter of dayglow 

on the horizon. A bathtub calcified in leaves.

The barn on fire, its sides crackling 

in sparklers of flame. At night, I go walking 

in your landscape until I reach myself again.

Writing: Eliza Browning

Music: Stephanie Yen

Art: Helen Mak