Doren Robbins (1949 / Los Angeles, California)

July was always the month for me. I cling
to July as if there are no doubts about
July. I feel human enough and animal enough
in July. I identify with those harvests flying
just above the rock walls, and then bursting
from themselves into the ground, into each other.

I'm talking about a plain garden with apricots
and lemons, where the cicadas play in the sage but never
show their watery guitars. And what is that harvest
all about? Their music is a harvest, an overflowing
harvest, whether those musicians and their instruments
are visible, or not.

I'm saying I have everything in July. I'm saying
that July is the birth of it. July
the spiders born in the camellias. July
the hummingbird and the olive―
and that's Linda Janakos' hummingbird
asleep in her lap, that's Linda Janakos' olive,
the one with the breast inside of it.
This is what my sister stitched
to the weaving inside her brother's head.