(It’s cold; let’s have a summer poem)

she was slender in the summer
heat the way it unfurled across
her skin like ink through blotting
paper beads of sweat like dew
dancing naked in my garden
because we can tangled vines
as walls and sprinklers (hoses
with holes cut in them) serving
as marble fountains at the heart
of our labyrinth record player
dragged outside flowery yellow
music she says sounds like sun
shine white bread with butter or
daisies threaded through her
hair it took me an hour and
now they’re falling out as she
whirls between the rose bushes
snow on green grass i take the
petals one by one and arrange
them artfully on her pink tongue

Zenobia Frost
Previously published in The Definite Article