The end of summer this year
is like a personal assault like a
slap from a wet leaf, the leaves
fluttering down and the colors just
turning and sun setting less and less far
north and the mist on the river the acorns
landing like a shot on the deck and the yellow
school buses practicing their routes, and I swear I
saw ceramic pumpkins for sale, it’s only August for
Pete’s sake, I gauge how much food we should eat up at
the cabin, and drinks, and think of letting the air out of the
rafts even though it seems we just put the air in, spring pushing
so far into summer that it was July before we could use the dock,
the water deep and cold when it should have been low and languid
and now the kayak paddle drips cold water into my lap and by eight o’
clock it’s pretty dark, I can hear the dog whimpering in his dream on his bed
in the living room, his muzzle getting gray and there are not as many summers
for him, I’ll get 90 if I’m lucky even though I’ve mostly loved fall, and winter, this year
I craved summer and its bright greenness and tomatoes at the farmer’s market and live
music and long bike rides long past 8 p.m. and the hay bales holding down the fields, they’ve
bundled up the time, straw by straw until the weight of memory pins the acres to the earth and oh
it hangs here, for just one more moment and then it’s
Halfway North 