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# System prepended metadata

title: Delta Summer

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# Delta Summer
**by Diane Wiener**

Delta summer plays possum 
with Buddhist Sisyphus lessons

a stray cat 
evening thunderstorm
slows thoughts

flash flood warnings
notice sensations 

deep weather pushes
Wednesday’s
speechless noise

do not drive unless 
it’s an emergency

cherry pits falling 
on pistachio shells
sound ready 
to compost

the time echo 
tastes cold air
turned hot like
when you pee 
after iceskating

when I sing for the boa 
the kittens trill

why do I peel the tape 
off the book spine 
leaving it so sticky
I have to retape 
 
fancy snakes sleep 
sea scallops split 
kimchee mouths





seven steely-eyed sloths simmer seaside
seven slick silver sliders sleek and smirking
seven stuttering splices of smack splash
seven spider slips speak of Spaniards
seven Saturdays splurged on sushi
seven strings silly stop showing
seven sample skeletons sometimes sidle  

what if we could
taste with our skin
the way an octopus does

these are the stories 
of my hands
on the keyboard 

left longer
right wider
left taller
right deeper
left lifts light air
right finds 
dinosaur stones

waiting for the 
next fearsome thing
running under a lark

diurnal den of dreys
diatomaceous drifter dog
densely dim diner dins
daleths delve deliberating

chasing clockwise thoughts 
I cannot track 
unraveling directions
heading to the right 
the heavier denser side

this posture feels like a hat
I’m not wearing any more
with its numb January hands




circulating left
stiff right
windy left
swizzle stick left 
pink flamingo fizzy 
Shirley Temple 
grenadine syrup left
thick brick right 
steady as she goes right
left freedom rides the wind
twice right lines

the math is off
marching 2/2 
Sousa horns
your left your left 
your left right left

there’s the tie snapped 
for the chorus performance

a little yellow book finds
thin pointed pain on the left 
shoulder blade
with its uneven glasses 

I know if I try I will know
I know nothing 

what I know does not matter 
what I know makes no difference 

the left higher than the right 
the left the top step on the ladder 
the right the bottom rung

this morning
we make a minyan
of hard boiled eggs

Siri says all the alarms are off
then she says the next alarm 
is set for 10 p.m.
make up your mind Siri


a mother bat and her baby 
recognize each others’
voices and scents 
among thousands 
in the nursery colony

a baby bat is a pup
a bat is as smart as a dolphin

vampire bats feeding  
hurt no one
the cows do not feel 
quick incisions 
or lapped up blood

some people suck
but none can pollinate like bats 
who maintain and advance 
rather than destroy
ecological systems 

sensation decomposes
bark turns to mush

I uncoil my head
shit from a mussel

what happened to 
the rest of them
I can’t be the only one
waking up to climb

the butterfly effect
shouldn’t be a burden

winter arrives early tonight
or maybe it is just near 
the back of my neck