Do You Remember the Dog Days?

Do you remember the dog days,
When we made swords and shields out of addition worksheets
Battled on the patio with peach juice dripping down our chins?

We ate hard-boiled eggs in the sticky hut of June gloom.
Your mother called your name to cut up carrots for a salad,
My father crossed his legs and bellowed smoke through his nose in his wicker lawn chair.

I never understood how you could read The Land of Stories to me
With only the firefly light shining into the nylon walled tent.
My head on the gravel pillow i’d built under my sleeping bag.