abecedarian for the immigrant children singing in front of unit 372

august comes in unshuttered

brightness. in the back of our rented

chevrolet the tomato plants flower and

die in the sun’s hot

envy. our new apartment—a

fickle thing, iron banisters and trembling

grates and the neighbor’s cat

howling through the wall—crumbles by the

hour. on the bench across the street we eat

ice cream treacherously slow. dog walkers

jut past and jeer at us; to them we do not

know the difference between a

lick of ice cream and a lick of english,

made in china stamped on our sweaty foreheads,

nameless and deaf and

over the moon with american awe. let us

pray we never learn. for there is no

quietness of early afternoon and no

resting languor of summer as we rise and begin to

sing voiceless, unhearing, to the

teetering pines above us, to the

unwavering cornflower field that is the sky,

violent

with joy.

exhale and laugh and

yield to the

zealous rhythm of life,

children,

sweetly,

feverishly

sing.