SARA KRAHN

Midsummer
after “Veranda” (Alex Colville, oil on canvas)

The light. That dog—it’s a lot. 
I won’t do without any of it. He thinks
about the way the cold sea 
looks beyond her swimwear—yellow 
like a wasp. She’s removed, peruses 
Saturday sales in the whisper of news-
paper tents above the snoozing animal
barely breathing in this heat. The man
is naked, mostly, save the time 
wearing his wrist. Bare skin ripples
his shoulders like sand. 

The colours of their middle-age
are a midsummer tease, matching 
hues, bluing into blue into bluish-
white in the distance. So here we are
too, a gallery of gazes 
looking on these affairs—easy 
chairs on the veranda. 

But what about that dog again.
Midnight stain on bright grey 
foreground, lazy stomach falls
and rises again in shadows, muscles 
haul bones, heavy eyes 
cloaked in the daydream. Breathing 
just beneath: the black promise
of sleep.