Amy Wang

Summer fire

jumping the banks of the river, the sky flutters
overhead like it knows something I don’t. Like

loveliness is something you can pick up and
swallow, like we only ever open up from outside

-in. Woke up this morning and realized I was in love
with you. Sorry, sorry for waiting to hear your voice

over the phone when I should’ve just called. Sorry
for asking you to bring me down to the fields

with you last night, sorry for pretending I knew
something you didn’t. Sorry I didn’t tell you

about that dream, the one in which we slept through
the evening with armfuls of violets. Feet skimming over

the horizon, seeking the end of the gullies
we ran through as children. Blue checkerboards,

little children running up and down the dirt roads
as if they go on forever. July looming close like a door

that only opens when you load its hinges with heat
—I draw ripples in the pockets of the river, trying to see

you in the flashes of my reflection. Breath,
rushing out of the trees like the guttering

of a match. Sorry for the fact that by the end
of this month, I will still only
be dark grass in a low field, my body studded over

with panes of green dreaming. Sorry that I’ll still
be waking up each morning
realizing I’m in love with you. Still only

waiting to hear your voice over the phone.
I don’t know any better and some days

it feels like I don’t know anything
else.

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Amy Wang is a writer from California. She is a 2020 prose alumnus of The Adroit Journal's summer mentorship under Andrew Gretes. When not crying over fanfiction, you can find her translating Chinese literature, coding and taking long walks.