Summer's End

No dolphins that night. The estuary
around me then falling away as I stepped
in a skin of light to witness
clouds from a furnace-heart, the sun
a meteorite in slow motion, then
bubble of mercury on phosphorus.
The child's hand placed absently,
trustingly, on my thigh for a long minute
as we stood in half-dream till his mother
claimed him with laughter, the boy too small
for embarrassment, the sun a meniscus
but plotting fireworks after its drowning,
to tell us with triumph, as heat turns
to silence, that summer is over.