Under the Blaze of August

by Charles Hensler

Someone was playing Clair de Lune
all night. Large flocks of small birds
today, heading west. A silhouette
at the door. An appointment
to make a portrait of every bone, each one
to be revealed, brought blinking
into the light. Under the blaze of August
the car simmers in the driveway. The late sun
ricochets off the pearl-grey hood, through
one eye and out the other, finding every seam.
When I was a boy I melted the hands
of my plastic glow-in-the-dark watch
under the small sun of a hot lamp, believing
I could burn endless light
into every hour.

Charles Hensler lives and writes in the Pacific Northwest. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in North American Review, Epiphany, JMWW, Emerge Literary Journal, Rust & Moth, The Shore, Parentheses, One Art, Stone Circle Review and others.