Kinds of Honey

Walking. The grasses are yellow.

Dry as straw still in the ground.

.

You don’t walk barefoot through these

grasses, not like the ones back home,

where the rainfall is hardly ever

lacking. When spring comes

.

there the wide and lively rivers

might flood their banks

thanks to many winter snows.

.

You are jealous of the drifts

that friends complain about climbing over

in city streets to get to their cars.

.

Above the yellow grasses, smoke drifts

from a mountain fire. It smells like

camping and the north woods.

.

At night, the ice maker clunks

muted from the kitchen. You walk

across linoleum in your socks, and

toss a cube to the dog, and the other dog.

Two for you, no, three.

.

Let the dry cubes melt into icy water.

Lick the moisture

from the curve of your hand.