Reading in Late July

The humid weight of summer
presses into the page of the book
which begins to set roots in my hands
which begin to stick to my lap
which succumbs to the gravitational pull
of the bench and the bench to the porch
and the porch to the lazy earth, thus
rendering all suspended in a hazy stillness
thick with dreaming—
it is only then, in that quiet,
that the goldfinches appear,
chartreuse and inquisitive,
assessing the sculpture I’ve become.

Kimberly M. King, rscj