Summer Memory
When closed not too tight
my gray eyes
take me back to that Sunday evening
a grown summer memory
blurred by the sun
Mexican beers and lime salt.
The ladies smoked hand-rolled cigarettes
on the back deck
carrying on about their love troubles
puffing smoke
in hot gossipy circles.
My ears bent to the Cicadas
and the Texas swing be-bopping
from the crank phonograph
that used to be my grandmother’s.
The corners of my shifty stare
landed on her thighs. They were so
well-displayed in the sinking July sun
with her Barbie-like ankles glistening
crisscrossed on top of the table.
My shaky hands kept busy with sweat
rolling cigarettes and
fetching vodka drinks. Then the sun
disappeared behind the neighbor’s house
shadows leaked across the yard
onto the dream deck.
My busy hands stilled around her waist
and secrets were formed.
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Hunter Winfrey is 34. As a native Texan, he enjoys gardening, hunting, fishing, and cooking. He started writing, drawing, and painting when he was in elementary school and has been ever since. In 2007, he had his first-ever poem accepted for publication by the Live Poets Society of New Jersey: American High School Poets. He self-published a book of short stories through Author House in 2008. In 2020, he published a poem “Ariel Chart,” in an international literary journal. He is a father and husband spending his free time making art with his family and playing with his 7-year-old daughter, Louisiana.
Editor’s Comments and Image Credits: A porch [wallpaperaccess] with a woman in silhouette [pngaccess] during sunset rendered surreal by recoloring the images that were combined in PowerPoint.