summer’s end

I mostly wonder if I am doing this all wrong. What is a book, what is a poem, a sentence?

I’m talking to the dead, always talking with the missing, the lost, the unknown.

What is the opposite of holding, of being held?

Last night in the soft misty dark, we sat on the grass and watched the dogs greet each other. I was uncomfortable about the news we had received but you have always known how to set a broken bone.

After, we joked about things we knew little about — paper-making, shipyards, the soccer fields at night. We didn’t have much to prove.

Living this way — loose-limbed, belly breaths — is how we make a future.

Stone by aging stone.

Summer ends, the aphids make their last stand. No matter. There’s still a little time.