Summer Wakes in a Room of Mirrors

She slips in sideways—
through a crack in the curtain,
all elbows and eyelashes,
smelling of nettles and nectarines.

The clocks forget themselves.
Time hangs
like a wasp in a jar.

Barefoot, she tiptoes
over the backs of foxes
and leaves teardrops in the lavender.

I watch her melt
into the silvered leaves—
her breath fogs the orchard glass,
and when she laughs,
the pond ripples backwards.

She does not knock.
She never needs to.
The windows open of their own accord
when she is near.

And I, a moth
to her salt-sweet skin,
burn quietly
on the edge of her flame.