Anton in Summer

Natalie Susak

In class I learn the word for summer: ljeto.
This summer: ljetos.
This summer figs fall from trees
at the beach where we swim with your cousins.

Anton is wrestling the Hungarian vizsla
unleashed in clear waters.
They are diving and somersaulting,
the heat too much for soft animals like them.

How can I imagine Anton a soldier?
Anton so boyish even now
sun-baking in the bay
licking icecream
from salt-encrusted fingers,

Anton with his boy-band good looks
and his summer smile,
Anton who could never,
never hold a gun.

Before the war, you told him
to plant tomatoes. You left
and said when you came back
you wanted tomatoes.
He bought summer sweet golds.

When we visit he hands us
red globes so small & sun-warmed,
so ripe & fragrant.

Your tomatoes
waited thirty years,
stalks twisting together,
growing old.

You didn’t see how he tilled
hot earth, sowed seeds.
How he stayed by their side
watered shoots, young green
tender as a girl’s wrist.

As I sit across the ocean
of kitchen table I know
there is a word,
there is a word for this.