In this world,
We walk on the roof of hell,
Gazing at flowers.
— Kobayashi Issa
We understood this world
as a fistful of honeysuckles
taken from the fence
on the south end of the
playground.
They told us
not to drink the nectar.
They told us not to climb
the fence because the woods
were full of ticks
and not the real
reason—that a homeless man had
built a small shelter twenty meters
beyond the gate and they’d
been trying to have him
forcibly removed for
some years. Wire
bent in early summer
heat, and we fell through—
found him napping
with our hands
full of golden flowers.
Voices of cicadas.