A Ripening
It was night, and summer was slow, unrisen: still bloating with heat, still
turgid from early June downpours. The insect-loud dark pulsated around us
and the moon swallowed itself over and over again, the world hungry & raw
from growth. Everything tightened into the salt-damp shock of a licked
battery, the flesh swaddling our bones heavy with primordial aches as we
pressed against each other. In the humid blackness, no one could name us
humans. We could be tawny-gold pumas or the shudder of field mice, hearts
fluttering with euphoria in straw burrows, never knowing a world where
things are unnatural and coarse. We could be natural, here. Of course.
Of course. Silky and sure and thorough, we beckon glistening dawn,
calling out into the morning-soaked sky like song thrushes in the breeze.
Kayla Eyler is currently writing poetry and moping around at SUNY Geneseo. She likes vampires, women, tofu, and fresh air. When she isn’t bothering her roommate, she can be found gazing longingly out her apartment window to the parking lot or making a pasta meal.