Honeysuckle

Dead, honeysuckle summer
Dead teenagers
Dropping, mayflies. Impossible hallucinatory British Summer Time

In hot, sticky darkness,
Hidden cove-caves,
Absences appearing along
A sandy map.

All human, always human.

Salt-taste and salt-lips
Skin that crackles under
Polaroid sunlight
This could never be now.

So then, rotting sweetness
Dying on the vine,
Told only in recollections
Warped vinyl on the 45RPM of ’76
(Or was it the 76RPM of ’45?)
Sun-drenched days,
Sweat-drenched clothes,
Blood-drenched remembrance.

Bleached paper, crinkled, unfolded,
Scrubbed hands,
Lye, lies, all that season
Gone quiet,
The climber dry and brittle,
A tangle that cannot be undone
And all of it dead.