Already August

When my mother died, she was gone

for a long time, returned to say out of the frying pan

into the fire. On my wet pillow I heard you can’t beat a dead horse.

Heat killed under-watered roses and hydrangeas.

Once thick grass turned dun.

I was told if wishes were horses then beggars would ride,

understood the two pairs of shoes

she’d taken to wearing. One we bought

her when we shared a taxi to the city, the other

at the Monday Market. Who says a mother dies only once?

There’s the insect with green legs on its back in gravel, some holy beetle.

Spiders knit webs to suit the flies between umbrella and patio table.

I’m going back to school. I finger blue-lined paper, buy Elmer’s,

cut brown bag book covers.

A watched pot never boils, she says from the kitchen.