Rona

15

Procrastination

I like to think the beginnings of June feel like a melody, something lyrical, something whimsical,
cusp of vacation, and a prayer to the Final Exam gods. There are some things I wish

not to understand, how time streams like honey during seventh-period Calculus and whistles
by weekends, and Father at twenty-one, in the pressure-cooker turmoil of a revolution this month

two dozen and some years ago underneath a smog-lit Beijing sky. July at night brings glittering
pops of scarlet and cobalt, messy for peripheral vision: I fall in love with a songwriter who

likes grilled cheese sandwiches, but only for an hour. Fireworks tint everything rosy.
An hour thirty-five minutes away from Portland, the stars throb with a vitality I imagine

might draw many moths. In August a rush of due-soon homework emerges mysteriously
from a backpack forgotten underneath a pile of jeans, and instead of finishing history notes,

I scrawl down whispers about summer, call it poetry.