He wanted to be summer wind, summer mind,
fruit and rind in the sun—a boy translucent like mayflies.
I found his body in the field, hidden in the hand of summer,
in a field of flowers, thin stems with their bursting heads home to the mayflies.
A boy can want home in wide openness, can be safe in it, clear.
But when I found the body, it was still and covered in mayflies.
Is a field home in summer? With a boy lying on the ground, eyes clear,
hands up like tulips frozen in Summer’s eye, holding on to mayflies.
Wings like water, like little wings of sky, skittering air
around air he last breathed, the stillness easy to fly for mayflies.
A thought is like quiet, is like calm, but can cover a body
like a body, like a quiet can, moving slow and clear like mayflies.
A thought is moving and clear like water and his body is still
like water, water soft like life, soft like eyes or mayflies.
Nothing is heavy like a thought like a hand in reaching for the stem
of a flower, nothing like the thought of lifting up the home of mayflies.
Heavy is a thought in a hot Carolina sun in a field of flowers
with tiny fly, like a piece of sky pulled loose to pull up the boy like mayflies.
Nothing is heavy. The stillness above the heads of flower and stillness
of boy. Nothing is stirring, not hand, not head, only almost-nothing mayflies.
Pull the boy like mayfly up like a thought into the brain-sky, white clouds
like gray matter pulling to and apart in the not-clear like mayflies.
He is hidden and here, in the balled up fist of summer, of field and the clear
thought of creation pulling him together, pulling him apart with wings of mayflies.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 25, Issue 2.
Nick Powell is from Hemingway, South Carolina. He received his Bachelors and Masters from Coastal Carolina University. He is currently working at Lowe’s and applying to MFA programs.
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