Slippery Slopes

A Poem

Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich from Pexels

passion pits in your stomach

railing against the edge of reason

because you’re boiling up, inside out,

fever dreams left to quake and simmer

while the melon rounds your tongue

and summer tastes of ashes thrown to wind

chills of autumn eve mean nothing

to beach towns like these, salty air in brine,

while we laugh of nothing days

when we spent our parents’ money

like there was no tomorrow left to bring

and sorrow was someone else’s to swallow

your children leave for boarding schools

while you sit in your white house sanded

by hurricanes you never experienced

because you were always on the first plane out

and you sip wine whose name you can’t pronounce —

just another summer gone on the backs

of people who never knew any better