Work and Play

The swallow of summer, she toils all the summer,

A blue-dark knot of glittering voltage,

A whiplash swimmer, a fish of the air.

          But the serpent of cars that crawls through the dust

          In shimmering exhaust

          Searching to slake

          Its fever in ocean

          Will play and be idle or else it will bust.

The swallow of summer, the barbed harpoon,

She flings from the furnace, a rainbow of purples,

Dips her glow in the pond and is perfect.

          But the serpent of cars that collapsed on the beach

          Disgorges its organs

          A scamper of colours

          Which roll like tomatoes

          Nude as tomatoes

          With sand in their creases

          To cringe in the sparkle of rollers and screech.

The swallow of summer, the seamstress of summer,

She scissors the blue into shapes and she sews it,

She draws a long thread and she knots it at the corners.

          But the holiday people

          Are laid out like wounded

          Flat as in ovens

          Roasting and basting

          With faces of torment as space burns them blue

          Their heads are transistors

          Their teeth grit on sand grains

          Their lost kids are squalling

          While man-eating flies

          Jab electric shock needles but what can they do?

They can climb in their cars with raw bodies, raw faces

          And start up the serpent

          And headache it homeward

          A car full of squabbles

          And sobbing and stickiness

          With sand in their crannies

          Inhaling petroleum

          That pours from the foxgloves

          While the evening swallow

The swallow of summer, cartwheeling through crimson,

Touches the honey-slow river and turning

Returns to the hand stretched from under the eaves -

A boomerang of rejoicing shadow.