Victor Enns - the golden hour

The sun isn’t going to kill me as
I walk down the boundary road in 1963,

kick stones, dust rises, the light shifts
around my busy feet.

The heat slips between my legs
my thighs, neighbours, after all.

The Americans on the other side
are dangerous. Military observers

deliver war overseas, discontent soldiers
kill, at home, Presidents, too.

I can’t know this, and what little I know
I keep to myself. There are not many places to hide;

oblivious the sun shines, romances the western horizon,
her golden tendrils illuminate the blond hairs on my skinny boy legs.

I walk on, the slip of grass between my thumbs.
My breath calls water birds to this dry land.