Abbie Kiefer
It’s June Now
and the tomato plant, recent
seedling, has fringed itself heavy
red. It’s June now,
so I’ve cut back the moss phlox,
deadheaded the spent lilacs — let
every crisped cluster settle
where it fell. Because
it’s June, now the living things need
tending, more tending
than before. It’s June now, my son
half done with all his childhood
summers. Month when I will turn
41, though I hardly marked May, or the year
of 40. The feeling of 35 — its hard insistence
on potential. It’s June, now
it’s not. A day clear and clement
as that one a few Junes back.
Even dull with grief, I stopped
to shuck my sweater in the hospital
lot. It’s June for now and I am wrenching
at the spigot, letting the kids stir
mud in the driveway while I read
a blowsy book, transparent
protagonist and too many
adjectives. Parting pages with one hand,
a Pabst in the other, and I don’t feel bad,
no —
about the blowsiness, about my lack
of doing and the once-lilacs
studding the mud. It’s June. Now listen:
the Golden Sweet is unsparing, come take
some tomatoes. How could I ever
make use of them all?
Abbie Kiefer reads “It’s June Now”
Abbie Kiefer is the author of Certain Shelter (June Road Press, 2024). Her work is forthcoming or has appeared in Copper Nickel, Gulf Coast, The Missouri Review, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, and other places. She is on the staff of The Adroit Journal and lives in New Hampshire. Find her online at abbiekieferpoet.com.