tour(maline) of duty

 
watched the powdered watermelon  
of a mid-september's last stretch of sun  
tumble down under the racquet ball blue  
of autumn evening's earliest ambitions
coming up over the hill that marks the last  
of the traffic lights that house congestion  
   
this is where the air always opens up  
(and i remember how she would rub  
the back of her fingers against  
my forehead  
smoothing the wrinkled stress    
off of my furled brow)  
the skyline taking its first deep breaths  
here, forty-six miles north of city limits  
   
was heading back up to the farm  
with the front porch  
that hangs flypaper in syrup  
   
today, summer's peak gasp is huddled  
along the ridge of mother's chest  
as they both nap through the rain  
that is reflecting too much green  
to call the afternoon grey  
and I am on the porch  
that solved a sinner through wording    
then saw the sacred remembered in fathering