Coolness

by Lisa Garff

Out of red, slush watermelons

and empty, opened pea pods

silent coolness creeps.

From the wetness

of quick-drying cement and squirting sprinkler pipes

inside water balloons, hard-boiled eggs,

the newest edition of

A Tale of Two Cities.

From zippers on October mornings

and buttons in November

out of icicles melted by kindergarten tongues

from vanilla air, lazy polar bears

from the breath inside of bubbles

and sour milk leaking from the fridge

from the space between rhinestone snowflakes

and the clouds that let them fall.