Lana Hechtman Ayers
No One Told Me
All summer I was on edge.
Grass dried to dust.
Johnny jump ups supine by noon.
Bees creaking along.
Butterflies asleep in the yarrow.
Our dog burying himself beneath hostas.
My brother fried an egg on the hood of Dad’s Pontiac.
He only had to try it once.
Apocalyptic ripples of heat waves like bad omens.
Wind chimes lost of song.
Long glaring days of blood beating behind my eyes.
I swallowed my tongue.
Glasses of iced tea beaded up, wept.
I was waiting for something already gone.
The self who made up funny names for clouds,
the one who lived inside my body before breasts.
Lana Hechtman Ayers has shepherded over a hundred fifty poetry volumes into print in her role as managing editor for three small presses. Her work appears in Rattle, The London Reader, Peregrine, and elsewhere. Her newest collection is The Autobiography of Rain (Fernwood Press, 2024). Visit her online at LanaAyers.com.