By Taunja Thomson
Summer settles on my skin blue & green,
broad sky & tendon-vine of passion flower—
filament spoked like daddy long legs
as they amble, stabbing pavement.
I stretch under summer’s down—humidity
kissing every pore, licking my hair, nuzzling into
every crevice, thigh & inside of elbow,
with a tongue as thick as sun.
And when summer storms firmament
& clematis drowsing on trellis, wakes its purple
fury so that each flower jerks & shimmies,
I open my eyes, plant my feet in soil,
let each drop careen into my delphinium
skin, weedy legs, dandelion head, shredding
my fronded fingers until my petaled
husk scatters into autumn
where I feed crab spiders & shelter queen
bumble bees & swallowtails, where Luna moths
flicker at twilight as October blankets
chitin & pile & scale.
~inspired by Remedios Varo’s “Summer”
About the Author:
Taunja Thomson’s poems have appeared most recently in The Ekphrastic Review as finalists in its “Perfect Ten Marathon” contest, Sagebrush Review, & Beyond Words’ “Scars” anthology. She is a co-author of Frame and Mount the Sky (2017) & Delight Is a Field (2025) & author of Strum and Lull (2019), The Profusion (2019), & Plunge (2023).