NAPO 2

Today, I wrote with my students! I shared the napowrimo.net prompt with them and we talked about the technique of ending a poem with a question. So, without further ado:

April, East Texas

Here in Texas, we await the summer
like a child braces
for the slap of his mother,
blend into the cowering shade
and await the inevitable:
August. We deserve this season,
the glut, the long days, the rays
like lashes against bare skin,
the heat echoing from the pavement
like admonishment from the sky,
the flush of sunburn,
the pointing finger of noon.

Not even lemonade can quench this.
No sprinklers can wash this guilt clean.
We made this sweltering bed with carelessness.

But today, a cold breeze blows in
from the north and staves the punishment
for now, filling Beaumont with a sigh
of relief. Winter, in its death throes,
cools the afternoon. And I wonder,
what on earth did I do to deserve such grace?