I invited the month of June to dinner.

She smelt of warm; wax paper and sawdust

 

and brought flowers, rose with honeysuckle tied in teeth

their scent filled the air like death.

 

Over wine she told us she won’t eat meat

roadkill decays dead quick in her, the gravel is too coarse.

 

As we chewed warm tarmac I watched her kiss my husband

she left popsicle stains and him wanting

 

Dessert, we had dust, we ate it with our eyes,

after she offered to wash up with her salt-crusted hair.

 

But she couldn’t possibly, we said, spilled sun works

like oil in water, in any case, it’s impolite.

 

Before she left, she asked after winter,

whom she’d never met.