A Cardinal Flies Low to the Ground

As published in Grub Street

It is 8:30 p.m., and God 
has granted me a half hour or so 
to walk laps round the four blocks 
encircling my brick house

It is 8:30 p.m., and the baby has decided to sleep, 
allowing me to walk laps 
round the four blocks encircling my house 
while my husband pan-fries salmon

It is 8:30 p.m., but a July kind of 8:30 p.m., you know? 
The sun is hardly setting; for the first time all day, 
the neighborhood oaks provide enough shade 
to ease the Anthropocene swelter. It's been so hot, 
I'm worried my alt-right neighbors finally prayed 
the world’s way to the second coming. 
I'm too busy walking laps to contemplate
the prospect of heaven, which in itself tells me
which way I'm headed – but if 8:30 is the End Time,
at least I'll go down all aglow with evening 

It is just past 8:30 p.m., and I spot a cardinal 
flying low to the ground in the yard of a house 
whose otherwise neat flowerbeds are combusting 
with purple hydrangeas 

It is after 8:30 p.m., and the cardinal 
is flying away, and I am swimming 
in the evening breeze. I am damp 
with stubborn humidity. I smell 
like sweat and tear-free shampoo,
& when I catch a whiff of my own skin, 
I miss my daughter. 

I have passed by the combustion of purple hydrangeas 
no fewer than five times, & the cardinal 
has not returned. He is not tied to these four blocks, 
or to any brick house, I imagine. 
I hope he finds what he is looking for. I have

walked something like seven laps. 
My half an hour is almost up. Before,
I’d have written a different poem. 
Waxed on about flying away 
after skimming the Earth’s surface, bursting free 
from a flowerbed & blooming, uncontained 
for the summer, unconcerned
with anything that bloomed before me, 
or anything that might bloom after.