The sun beat the shit out of me.
I can still taste the salt on my tongue
mixed with dirt and licked
carelessly from the upper lip.
I can taste grit and hand me down paint
and the sticky pollen of black pine.
I can taste the sun.
Hot and hostile and dry even though
I’m dripping wet.
The sunshine slapping my face from space,
reaching way down to remind me

of how it feels to burn red and deep
till you’re begging for a vinegar soaked
brown paper bag
plastered across your back
as tight as kitschy wallpaper
in a single wide kitchen.
Mamaw used to remind me
to slather on the sunscreen.
Great Papaw used to go down to the garden

hoe in hand in the night.
And here I am, no time for common sense,
sweating and sweating and sweating
myself silly, tack hammer in hand.