This summer, we drank cardamom iced tea sweetened with agave —
savoring an idea of sweetness lingering, not as if we actually ate honey
from the lovely overflow of liquid summer heat and soft beeswax
tongued with a wedge of spanakopita and a platter of shaved lamb
strewn on pita bread with yogurt cucumber dip —
glistening slices of salmon topped by edamame, wakame seaweed,
crushed macadamia nuts mingled with black sesame on beds of rice,
and steaming cups of chai with black tea and milk, loose-leaf sencha,
and chunks of sea bass with a tossed mesclun of tender greens
garnished by crisp curls of chicharrónes
and chopped beet salad with tart beets—the mellow gold ones
soaked in wine vinegar, dressed with tendrils of microgreens —
corollas of night-blooming honeysuckle and star jasmine flaming
with small cups of heady fumes wafting on trellises across the lot
with a walk-in hair salon and laundromat —
then avocados with eggs-over-easy in hollandaise sauce over muffins
alongside triangles of toast dipped in yolks beaten with cinnamon,
and flavorful black coffee with a drop of fresh cream,
quiche with crimini mushrooms, feta, swiss cheese, not leeks or truffles,
shot through with julienned sundried tomatoes the color of stop signs,
and mocha spiced with chili, black pepper, chocolate, cardamom again
by a plate of smoked salmon and capers, ricotta, buttery arugula,
and baby spinach drizzled with olive oil on thin sourdough toast
in glowing strokes of late June light
fringed by the noise of peninsula traffic on the harbor
laced by grease and silt from the machinery of life —
the sea isn’t far away though only gulls could spy it from here —
so why don’t we walk all the way to the inlet of the marina, a landing
where children play in the fading light blanched on grassy edges
as if already a memory of summer within summer —
and you say, with the air of a prophet who ate locusts and honey,
join me in the place where lives are bound together
by a cord of three strands.
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