:There’s nothing like the heat of July,
that empty heat that hangs over the fields
and blinds your eyes.

On the cloudy days the pier stands quiet
and the little boats sway in the breeze
before it stagnates and disappears.

A man comes and sails one into the bay
and they sail away, a spot on the water,
on the gray, against the July haze. 

The bumblebees cling to the goldenrod,
industrious in the summer heat,
and carry the nectar back to their hollows,
hidden somewhere below the ground. 

And the rest of the little boats
slip their moorings and sail
one by one away from the pier
as fireworks light the night
on the Fourth of July —
from houses on the hills,
not from the fire brigade this year.

Beneath the darkened sky
the heat of July roils
and coils into a serpentine mass:
summer’s prize,
a heat-stained mirage before your eyes.