august and my muscles have finally unspooled, my body heavy with heat, holding it the way the sky holds the summer light for too long—with purpose and defiance. skin sticky, salty, bitten—marked and owned by the season and its insects, by its willful, wild, joyful recklessness. everything lush and insistent. everything melting in the furnace of my mouth: ice cubes and popsicles and peaches. a litany of amens. waves of hallelujahs.