AUGUST

The sun,

Kicking heat off cement

Has amplified the smell of the blackberries.

 

Blackberries that mean,

The end of the summer is near.

 

Similar

 

To when

Our neighbour Toshi hands over warm paper bags

Brimming with ripe tomatoes

Of irregular shapes from her garden

 

How many times did I not sit on my roof at dusk?

How many bike rides did I not go on?

I only swam in the lake once or twice.

 

I can walk around and see that the mornings are darker.

Already.

Shivering washes of pink and blue,

Barely visible through the purple of dawn.

I notice the swollen scent of the air,

Eight months pregnant with fall.

 

Anxiety bleaches out all other emotions

School sales start

And I think,

Soon I would have noticed the buses practicing their routes,

If I was not, fortunately,

Going to be gone by then.

 

I think I can put the fan back in the attic,

The window screen under my bed.

The middle of august is a betrayal.

You are meant to think that summer could never end.

But the back of your mind is panicking,

Prickly, Already thinking

About summers wasted.

 

And one day, too soon,

I will feel a light chill, hear a honking goose.

The sun will glint on tops of leaves,

Spotlighting

The flames of orange, just beginning to lap at their tips.

And I will notice something go dormant inside of me.

 

Feel

Perhaps

A lumbering sigh.

Which will,

 of course be the sounds 

of summers wasted.