SUMMER HEAT

Summer heat
magnified the late-inning crack of ash,
a drive into the gap and rolling to the wall,
two runs in as crowd noise sweeps out to second,
Mr. Driscoll standing and yelling, That’s the pepper,
everyone’s fist in the air and oh, Charlene’s smile:

the clarity of summer evenings, long into the long
dark, parents pestering her to come in to give up
the shy brushing of our hearts, to send me
biking home under the whooped moon, the roadside
abuzz as the belly of my bronzed girl.