Thomas Mixon | poetry | The Start of Summer & So That We Two Could Meet

The Start of Summer


The start of summer meant not caring
          about watermelons in the trunk.
          In June we didn’t smell the funk
yet. The Green Album was blaring

loud enough to drown out warning
          signs that none of this could last.
          Not just the fruit, but what we cast
aside all of July: jobs, any morning

obligations, all our other friends.
          We bought them seedless,
          on sale, ripe, heedless
of refrigeration, of the cleanse

I’d later need blue gloves for,
          come September. Come on
          and kick me, we sang along
with Rivers Cuomo. We ignored

any degradation of our own. We smoked
          while the fruit rotted. We bought
          Amnesiac and Blink, but caught
ourselves with Weezer, as we toked

up, time and time again. The start
          of summer meant the longest
          time before we tried to kiss,
before I caved, before you fell apart

atop your mother’s failing leach field,
          a perfect metaphor we were
          too high to recognize, saboteurs
of autumn. I held my nose and peeled

the moldy flesh from the car’s liner.
          I was alone, throwing everything
          away. You weren’t there to sing
with me, or talk, or breathe, or whisper.

So That We Two Could Meet

          
the axel’s wrought, the people paid,
the salad mixed, the song conceived,
the switch left on, the paint left wet,
the cattle slain, the mass commenced,
the band delayed, the tire changed,
the engine stalled, the wind chimes stilled,
the menu crimped, the priest ordained,
the doll reposed, the counter manned,
the order placed, the power cut,
the lot repaved, the headlights long,
the tow hitch cracked, the saint decreed,
the chorus sang, the mics untouched,
the stars concealed, the knuckles grazed,
the second date, the sugar cane,
intangible, mechanical,
pontifical, impermanent,
your honesty, my shitty car,
our forebears’ feared, unsated god.