Climbing Silk Walls

The waning moon on my back.

Finally night cools in the way of shared sleeping bags and crickets softening the edges of the crinkled days.

The end of lightning bugs and the end of yesterday's this.

How empty the days seem when held high into summer's sun, arrivals not scheduled. Autumn left as she was.

I am surprised by the fullness of the roadside sunflowers tied with homemade twine. Is it time already? October can only hold scarlet promises, you know . . . maple flames and blowzy cheeks revealing us all as we are. I wanted more than I could say but therein lies the lie. Yellow is never the new red.

Spiders in my shoes and back-porch sentences; neither stay long enough to make a difference.

After the tornados, I knew the nightmares would return. But nowadays the dreams end with a voice saying: you are afraid of tomatoes?! The city repairs itself and so do I. A soundtrack repeats: every little thing's gonna be alright . . . with or without you . . . I can't live. 

The writing only exists in the hints of sunrise – that eastern light which must do what it can to wake all who prefer to sleep under patchwork dreams and heron rain. Heroin rain? One climbs silk walls until after midnight. Only exhaustion will do.

The petunias are done and soon the beloved begonias. There are no choices here except the one where I hug apple trees and say thank you and nap in a lower sun to recover from all these dreams.

This way and that.