Miri Karraker & Caroline Rayner

FREAK HOURS

Finally it’s almost the longest day surfacing with depth a picnic on high containing in its woven basket stones tumbled freshly a backyard party trick working its magic forever obscuring its grammar as any good one does leaving in its wake a prayer: earthliness.

Weirder instruments the radio this morning—sounds like a weedwacker in the heat of the day—unwelcome—but I can’t bear to turn it off.

Window left open, rain came in, spoiled everything laid out and now, having to prepare again, several cheeses, and having to find some other treat to cut evenly as anyone might possibly pop in, and I, lost and twisting my hair with my fingers about it, having nothing lemon to offer as promised.

Worrying thread on the hem of this peach filled shirt, but who am I to care, emanating the coast, eucalyptus, cypress, miscellaneous florals, riding out the astrology of the rest of the day I heard would heal me.

Rainbow wobbling along water and light, suspend hand on water, remember zeroed net force on every molecule on contact.

Feral for a loud, complicated lunch I decide I am owed truth and serenity.

Vanilla milkshake, curly fries, no onion on a Saturday afternoon whose climax is not the maraschino cherry bursting in my mouth, rather the stem between my fingers.

Giant pink peonies rot, in underbrush where a cat goes to find shade without torment, music made on the water in all manner of weather floating from a kitchen window same as the idea of a birthday cake gone haywire.

Unbuttoned shirt, sweating glass, under the exaggerated blue the sky turns when I get caught thinking of anything else, taking a big bite of mint chocolate chip, the green kind from the store.

Tonguing cherry pit after cherry pit, smelling the tops of my knees, all vanilla, all salt, easing what remains of being out in the heat, all light, and cost, no filter or event, just me in shredded shorts, blinking hummingbirds.

Bright orange then raining and raining, sparkler in my mouth turned flat but still lightning bugs in the calm.

Concentrating upon sound like a cat, the green rustling outside means nothing as the blue truck arrives.

Never ever have I ever said to milk honeysuckle and never have I ever said to fill a glass with such fantasy, why bother truly with so fussy a process, half bottle of sparkling orange on the table.

Incandescently limitless, running my mouth, glitching looks a lot like weaving more warp than weft, your mouth rendered speechless until next time.

Miri Karraker lives and works in Minneapolis.

Caroline Rayner grew up in Virginia and currently lives and works in Massachusetts.