G(rammy): an ode to Skagit Valley summers

by Angela Heiser

For Geneva Rouse, known by the Barnard children as G

I'll forever hold you in a sunbeam of slippery

stellar star-sent radiation

so incongruous with our mutual memories of drizzling days

in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains 

where one is always acutely grateful to be sun-drenched for a change

Skagit Valley sun dappling and freckling the tulip fields

and the ferry dock in Anacortes

in the San Juan Island days

of my youthful summers 

I spent savoring the sight of your short-clipped grey-brown curls springing

as you and I ran laps around your idyllically overgrown

and European slug-infested backyard 

while your animated little lap dogs barked in unison

and you and I both screeched in shared laughter

 just as fleeting and impermanent as those sunny days

that too often ceded to clouds

so I’ll continue holding you forever in a secret sunbeam in my mind’s sky

slipping inside stellar star-sent radiation where our laughters can collide

Angela Heiser lives near Raleigh. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Carolina Muse, The Poetry Lighthouse, The Red Mud Review and County Lines. Her poem “Cornhusker” was awarded the Poetry Genre Winner for the 2024-2025 issue of The Red Mud Review. She is an alum of Writers in Paradise and reads for Abode Press, Wildscape and Libre Lit.

Instagram: angelacheiser