It could be nothing else? Someone has said
the title gives the game away. Oh, yes?
What else is summer-dark? A thistle-head;
the eyes of blackbirds; berries; the caress
of strangers; stripes on angry wasps; the sweat
of tarmac; rotten fruit; the road that takes
you somewhere new; oil on a beach; the threat
of thunderstorms; the gash a shadow makes;
a cracked stream bed; the first dead thing you find;
a half-heard secret; melanoma; flies.
The camera sucks it in and tries to bind
these images. All different. All lies.
It's X-ray film. Yes, they're all different, but
it could be nothing else. The scene's done. Cut.

© Peter Howard, contact