Sticky ice-cream fingers
on afternoons the length of a holiday,

the revenge of a smeared ant nest,
changes measured by the summer grass

shared chips and love’s boiled egg
gone with the sun in the sea,

a tumbling fumbling romance
on a green bed of insects.

Shedding skin in the shade,
eyes squinting on the pool side.

I’ll shield them with a golden cloud
and show off my gory pink.

Windows right down to freshen
sweaty car with dry grass,

and drown out the bloody kids.
Wish I was going that way.

I want to eat with a wasp
and sleep on the coach,

and take a last glass of lemonade
on the retirement home garden.

Too brief, too long,
too hot, too many people.

Too few worth remembering:
the summers that measure our winters.