July Swimming Away

I watched the swan with a dirty neck
and the tan of eternity
all over my own face

He preens. But for whom?
another July swimming away –
staggered stops before wintertide

A warm place to tread water

Pines watch the moon
drift into them
into me

How slightly the night draws in
blue light torching
thought into hot ash

Which universe careens without the mind?

I float spring-fed on the lake
under bluejay skies, losing feathers in an arc –
an eyelet made for threading

Careful
steady now
It'll only hurt for a bit

This is how I beg for the endgame

A fawn in the may apple patch
noticing a hawk  –
the peep of dawn 

blackberry bruises
on ninety degree days
so hold still now until it cools

The part of me that sleeps

Nameless grasses and the errant
untethered silken strands
of rainbows reeling

and I watch with Tom Petty sunglasses
in a filtered murkiness
of summer solitude

Can't you hear the deer gently chewing?

Soon it will all be adrift
a frosted glistening in the air
too cold to walk the dog

The white backs of sleeping bears
huddling along the shoreline –
six months of unbroken gray

The imagination winter lacks

With what is left
handfuls of blueberries and freckled kisses
and the way ladybugs gather on screens

And light
that won't leave
until after ten

Maybe a few more strokes across the bay