This summer
we will sit on the front porch and
count the stars
and the filigree necks of the
Lily of the Valleys
will bow under heads as heavy as
a dreamer's
and the air will be honey thick and sweet
with potpourri out drying to be tucked
into the drawers of lacy things
in the heavy, tired dresser in the house
and all the doors and all the windows and all the cracks in the floor
will stay open
so that the house can breathe
the rich air that congeals
in corners,
ripe and pungent
full of well-aged dreams
waiting to be cut from the cheesecloth in the cellar where they wait
stacked and dusty against cool clay walls
shoulder to shoulder with bottles of full
and wizened wine
sweating off their wrappers in the
August heat
and the cat will loll and lick at crusted jam
made from climbing up upon the
broken truck
to pick wild mulberries that stained our
bare feet
the tattoo of months blurred together
by the sun
and the rising smell of hot black asphalt that sears bare legs
sitting to trace a silhouette in fat chalk
or catch ants hiding in the cracks of
the sidewalk
between small fingers, trying not to crush them before
they are dropped into the waiting spider's web that is preserved
on the peeling green steps where the
children go
to braid dandelion chains to use as crowns
that will wilt with the coming of the night
when the moon sits, jocund upon her throne
of velvet sky,
serenaded by the crickets' violins,
and there will be promises thrown
to the wall
where, like the summer shirt of a fat man
they will get lost under the bed
and fester
but you and I will just keep counting stars
as the last of our endless days dry up
to the hum of the honeybees' song,
sung under her breath
and the whisper of the willow leaves
over the lake
but you will not hold my hand
out on the porch
nor notice when my hair falls in my eyes
but I will pretend
until all our tomorrows are shriveled to dust and blown into the wind
that you will miss me
once the fireflies in the jar have all
gone still
and the house is once more closed against
the air
and you are gone