The Blue Moon Review

Strauss In August
by Darren Lauzon

I imagine how the Greeks might have strode
round this quadrangle of our backyards
the Joyces', Louks', McDades', their pear tree,
the shabby marmalade cat resting in the
rotting fruit hollowed out by August wasps.
I imagine them climbing the linked fences,
first right foot, carefully, then left, wary of
snagging toga or losing sandal in Joyce's tomato vines, 
or looking upward at the blue, unseasonably cool 
August evening, September's hesitant, anxious 
tongue at their lips and the blush of sunset slipping 
over McDades' towering black walnut trees.  
I imagine their earthen women lugging heavy 
jugs of water, blackened fingers still humming
after tuning dark earth for submerged berry
and stoking fires, stirring pots, listening 
to hot wines burn in husbands' bellies.
They sweep out spots in early fallen elm leaves, 
distantly aware of oscillating rhetoric,
settle themselves and allow themselves
to be gathered into their husbands' warm selves, 
and be party (amused for sure) to the hot philosophies
rising off the bog of feast steeped tongues.  
I step back from my window, light my lamp 
and turn up the volume of my scratchy recording 
"Death and the Transfiguration," reach for my blanket
the first time in many months.