Brick and Mortar

In summer’s bone dry dampness my body is an adobe shanty bricks molded of chaff and clay sand and silt pieced and curing under steamy sun-scorched skies rayed with wild pollen flowers hung and drying in the rafters fragrance fevering my senses drawing in the soft-haired mother strolling down the road, the ice cream vendor pedaling his push-bike on a lazy afternoon under shade of spreading maple tree, Old Babchia swinging in her back porch, deftly splintering her fingers between the slipping stitches of her clacking needles, half-lidded eyes swelling like quickening stucco, dreaming lightly of the old world songs. My body is a temple of dried dandelions, powdered fluff, wrinkled plums and scratchy stalks of withered spiky thistle blooms cracking and splitting under the parched late summer sun trussed and roped together by the old crone’s purling, knitting twining threads of multicolored yarn. ‘Here, take, eat,’ Old Babchi’ says, offering me an ice cream bar, with starkly grinning teeth and opulescent smiles. And as I bite into the cool brown block, the taste of summer bursts and melts, layering us between the grass and straw, baking our bodies until we, too, are blocked and bonded our earthen walls, just for a moment, shaping us, then crumbling and dissolving preserving woven patchwork in a kiln of sun-dried warmth.