I see an oddly maligned portrait, out there beyond the field, where the trees curl up the sides of the nubby landscape, where intentions are laid bare in the shade of their leaves, drooping, thick and unctuous in the summer air. Is the way he moved his arm, motioning toward nothing in particular, an indication?

Heavy wasps float through the haze on sagging wings. Hot breath is drenched on us, despair comes and goes, all the colors from before are different now, so that it becomes harder to remember that I am me.

I float, with the leaves, the leaves and me, we float downstream in the sluggish current of the brown creek. Being younger now, I have a sense that it doesn’t end, but in a flash the tributary joins the river and loses its brief individuality.

Being absorbed now, marching west toward the bloodied ribbons, it’s all sepia and mossy dirt eroding into the water, maladjusted evolutionary branches and vestigial parts. We shed it all as the deer watch us, not to pry but just because it is their nature.

– Gregory McGreevy