Summer closes with a shuttered breath of expectation. Days shimmy by, excruciating, precious.

In Florida, summer suns set in a bewildering sort of golden haze. Long rows of houses, mass modeled off of a poor man's plantation, shift out of focus as the shadows of twilight cast along the vinyl siding, the suburb-standard white garage doors [now gone dingy after years of two cars, hurricanes]. Memories of crickets and frogs stir quiet symphonies. A sprinkler tick-tick-ticks, counting off the moments that remain before the crape myrtle [craten myrtle, I called it] and St. Augustinegrass [one word, I found one day while lost in the garden section of a Home Depot] and pink skin are all cooled by clear night. The summer night is almost chilly, if only for the ones who grew up expecting warmer. Sometimes, I dream that the lightning bugs have made it this far south, but mostly I watch the stars. I remember being younger than I am now, worn out from running around the bougainvillea and from scuttling over fences, asking my mother for a sheet to lay out in the driveway so that I might look at the stars without getting the concrete dirty from the mess I'd accumulated during the day. The sweat would have dried by then, something you just got used to. I used to be more fearless than I am now.

Tonight, I close my blinds and turn on the lamp by my bed. I suppose the sun still set, the stars still flickered like small batting eyelashes, the grass still pokes and prods and bends and leaves its green traces on knees. But Summer closes slowly behind me, my feet white from the shoes I never used to wear.



As recently as today, I was featured in a group of sorts that shares works by different poets on dA. If I had any technical sense I would gladly link to the group, but I have no idea how to. I would like to thank them for featuring "Eve", and would greatly recommend you visit their page [you can find the link in the comments for "Eve"] and check out the poems that have been featured before me. Some of them are fantastic.

The boy I might love is in Berlin. More on that, perhaps, another time.