Summers

This afternoon lying in the long grass

sun on my face, eyes shut, remembering

sixty years ago I suppose it was

lying in long grass, eyes shut, sun on face,

imagining—no, pretending rather—

this isn’t the edge of the school playing-field

but a corner of a garden (before that house

was sold five or six years before) a child

happy in the long grass, the hot sun.

Open my eyes now on what afternoon?