Sample Content

Charlie Smith
In July

In July when the meat smoke
fills the town, that’s when I think
of you.  And June too,
I thought of you in June.
And in the months before that.
A string of time’s divisions, all
of them inky with little dots where I
thought of you.
Certain places soaked
with you, like the towels they used to
mop up the lemonade.
I thought of you
In the band concert when the tubas
Dropped down in to their difficult valley.
And later at the reception
where a boy dropped a slice of yellow cake
in the punch.
In July the barbeques begin.
As if it’s then the cows reach the market,
meat available.
In China, they say
men fish with nets in the little streams.
Landlords watch them, waiting
for their money.  If I was there,
an intense person, watching his net
settle onto the current,
I’d think of you, that’s obvious.

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