Published: August 25, 2010

In the last, good hours of the summer,

when the days began to droop like slumping

shoulder blades, you and I were latecomers.

We kept fading fireflies from jumping

too early into their twinkling waltz;

they needed you to lead their dainty feet

toward autumn’s sticky mouth. The forests’ vaults

stayed open long nights for us, the thinning heat

threatening our paths closed with thorns. We kept

our shoes indoors, dared the anemic sun

to set when we nursed that infant stream, swept

up in its black glass ballet. Anyone

could have seen us running to get ahead

of the horizon’s last, sacred slice of red.