June Twenty-First
My mother’s cigarette flares and fades,
the steady pulse of a firefly,
on the patio under the chestnut.
The next door neighbors are over.
My father, still slender, is telling a joke:
laughter jiggles in everyone’s drinks.
On his hour’s reprieve from sleep,
my little brother dances
in the sprinkler’s circle of water.
At fourteen, I’m too old
to run naked with my brother,
too young to laugh with my father.
I stand there with my hands in my pockets.
The sun refuses to set,
bright as a penny in a loafer.
Editor’s Note: The subtle tension of family relationships from the point of view of a teen is colorfully drawn in this poem’s imagery.
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