Summer Fever

February 16, 2009 at 11:16 pm (Kelowna Poems, Poems)

That evening I lie on my aunt’s long brown couch with its recurring pattern
of horse-drawn carts and oversized wagon wheels. The front door is open,
I can hear the Regatta fireworks popping and cracking the sky, and crickets
chirping close by. The blue TV light flickers in the living room where I am the
lone watcher of the summer olympics uneven bar competition. Brian calls
through the doorway to the kitchen where the grown ups play cards, “You know
what we do with sick kids, don’t you, Nickel?” I watch welts appear on my arms and think
about how long it takes for the sound of his voice to hit my ears. My brother asks
for more cinnamon toast. Aline says, “I bet Kevin could live on it”. I see him standing
on a land-sized piece of toast, where he has just staked a flag. I see the Snells’
brown-trimmed yellow house through the window, the silhouette of a man crossing
the street. It is suddenly dark inside and out, the night a blue-black bruise of sky.
The black rotary phone rings far away somewhere. My aunt asks “Hello?” and “Who’s this?”
and “Hello?” A breeze pushes itself over me through the front door again and again
until I completely disappear.

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