Dog Days in Severna

Brianna Coleman

July seizes, an isolated

sauna, until I join

my friends on a sweltered

dock, tight roping

across coals of wood,

High Noon perspires

from swollen skin,

grazing jellyfish stings

on the ladder that sinks into

lake turned nature’s broth

In the middle month, we jump

on inflated rafts, boy scout

knotted together, we float

confessing on the water

sentences that string together

after three drinks & daylight

chasers, words that might

muffle beneath inside air,

echo against a choir

of cicadas, above the shore