May to December

By August, we are sluggish with love and slide two
barrettes into the night of my hair. Like twin fireflies.
Like rabbit feet dyed blue and downhearted, stamping
the side of my head. July’s shadow is almost rot
and we haven’t spoken in days. I play pool with Mik
and count the ways he sinks ball after ball while I await
the doom of going second, soon regret letting him break.
I bet on this game. I bet on the waning of light, fame. I know
most things dim. It’s hot when I leave the bar and I say
Come, sun, you muscular star, thinking heatstroke
might strike this state of weather from my heart.
The trigger of seasons, the treasons of these city streets.
Orchard and Broome. We loom. We make reasons and room
for why things can’t work; we lurk into autumn.
We warm our hands for October’s plume. We say soon, soon,
soon something will be revealed. We fool no one
and are no one’s fool, least of all the late summer gods
who know a burn, who rope in hope, who prepare us
for a meal of dead light. In August, I want snow. I want July.
Midsummer prophet sight. Belief. Faith. A cathedral
with all her weight. A winter love. A new year.
A regal infancy. A Sunday, born.