Slowly I Turned
by Cam M. Roberts
I.
In periphrastic August
our sky remained cloudless
as the sun shone grueling fierce
into the pinnacle of bellicose noon
where all haven shadows withdrew
and the horizon rose in blurry fumes
all day I was sanctioned out-of-doors
pulling up weeds whereupon I laid brick
shouting out of nowhere a slew of fearsome paroxysms
such as I am a blood vat on the back of a rusty dump-truck
or settling for horrendously choppy compounds like fuck life
and of course I was gloveless
II.
When overcome by the heat
I stood primal in stance
and stark naked
I swayed
till look
away
III.
I hovered ghost-ridden with purpose
towards the twelve steppingstones
where the black supine slate was burning
as a line of lesions or sunspots from solar-flares
somehow I endured sloppily across them barefoot
where at the end and perpendicular
were long ramshackle vines of scuppernong grapes
they were unripe
so I ate them
Ubi sunt 