Sea-grapes sloth in sun coursing
on noon, mid-morning’s furnace
assembling humid ambitions.
To the west, clouds in earnest
call up reservists. No drills today,
the real thing late this afternoon,
a slow-grilled beachhead foray.
Summer cicadas cluck and croon
special ciphers of secret services,
and north and south, traffic gutters
along avenues periodically coerced
into clogs of idle-engine mutters.
All this is visible from the balcony,
like my neighbor’s mango tree
and its hanging, swollen fruit,
each capacious as a mandrake root,
like weekenders waiting to cross
the street and file into the park
to forget, to barbecue the losses
of the week and anoint the sparks,
to toast new nostalgia and more.
When it’s over droves of ibis
will scavenge the garbage stored
in the cans or littering the grass;
the weather will be a non sequitur,
a reason to leave Florida for Maine,
and the moon will wax another lane
waves score awfully into the shore.