by Margo Taft Stever

Summer Rain

Mosquitoes attach themselves
to the undersides of leaves;
their husks litter trees,
shimmering underthings.

Children’s voices
unfold, always hungry.
They suck my limbs; their cries
bind my narrow bones.

The sawed-off edges
of their voices splinter,
crack. Children crawl 
and scream, held inside 

the eaves—their brave
contorted faces. Nothing 
delivers me from them.
They will not sleep.

Mosquitoes weave their bodies
through the screens. Rain 
prattles down the spout,
fertile rain.

Farewell to Florida

Good-bye my orchid, how
I have loved you, the subtle dream
of your varying blue, the verdant 
arc of your stem, how you survive 
only in certain places, how much
else we have in common
I can only guess.

Good-bye my back yard
full of palm trees swishing,
bristling, full of tiny lizards
who climb up the screen 
porch to soak in hot sun.
Good-bye my two lounge chairs
by the pool where we rarely sat,
but I always thought fondly of you.

Good-bye all the mighty bird sounds, 
the egrets, the great blue herons,
the anhinga who spread her wings
to dry. Good-bye to the creature
I glimpsed one day by the pool’s edge. 
Whether he was a monitor lizard
or baby alligator, I will never know.

When I went out after the dog’s bark
scared him away, I found the chameleon 
he had chased into the pool, and I rescued her.
Not knowing whether she lived or died,
I crouched and watched her, stunned
and mute in the grass; she, too, has run away.