Summer Afternoon
︎︎︎ Jared Flood
︎ Dec 9, 2025
You never said exactly what sex is,
stuck in the bulk of air thick
like Kentucky bourbon bellies
of the suburban dads just outside,
lounging like August
atop boat rust on the dock —
sharing beer and similar levels
of sun damage, contemplating local
conspiracies in overgrown civil obscurity.
After a string of health code violations,
the news says, a barge sinks their favorite bar
floating on the Ohio for insurance money,
the news doesn’t say. All it takes to love
something is for it to be yours
our bodies take different shapes
in the water’s silty reflection.
Language is always finding me late,
moving slow as a finger pushing letters
through wet cement. Inside, water drops
from the AC seated in the mouth
of your window. Fan string
tapping the glass of its own light.
one-hundred or so blackbirds
explode from a tree.
stuck in the bulk of air thick
like Kentucky bourbon bellies
of the suburban dads just outside,
lounging like August
atop boat rust on the dock —
sharing beer and similar levels
of sun damage, contemplating local
conspiracies in overgrown civil obscurity.
After a string of health code violations,
the news says, a barge sinks their favorite bar
floating on the Ohio for insurance money,
the news doesn’t say. All it takes to love
something is for it to be yours
our bodies take different shapes
in the water’s silty reflection.
Language is always finding me late,
moving slow as a finger pushing letters
through wet cement. Inside, water drops
from the AC seated in the mouth
of your window. Fan string
tapping the glass of its own light.
one-hundred or so blackbirds
explode from a tree.
Jared is one of the people who lives in Portland, Oregon.