This Clumsy Living

I watched the young couple walk into the tall grass and close the door of summer behind them, their heads floating on the golden tips, on waves that flock and break like starlings changing their minds in the middle of changing their minds, I saw their hips lie down inside those birds, inside the day of shy midnight, they kissed like waterfalls, like stones that have traveled a million years to touch, and emerged hybrid, some of her lips in his words, all of his fists opened by trust like morning glories, and I smelled green pouring out of trees into grass, grass into below, I stood on the moment the earth changes its mind about the sun, when hiding begins, and raised my hand from the hill into the shadows behind the lovers, and contemplated their going with my skin, and listened to the grass in wind call us home like our mothers before dark.About the Author:Bob Hicok is assistant professor of English at Virginia Tech University