Love

You're six years old, it's late July,
the afternoon rains have come and the pastures.
In your high desert valley

are flooded. You and your friend with the
olive skin
and rounded belly are wearing nothing
but shorts, you've gone out to play in the drizzle,

the guzzling ground has sucked you down
- you're alligators slithering on your bellies in blue
grama and buffalo grass, the landlord's cows

scraping their hides on the mudded house
" I'm a crocodile!" your pal growls, her new front teeth
nipping your golden shoulder

the ditch beside the cotttonwood grove
swells with green apple rain.