preparing for solace among the last
of the season swimmers, drinking coffee
she is deshelling hard boiled eggs
I debate silently about digging out camping chairs-
this is how August ends. September will have its own momentum
and hopfully, there will be coffee, a pinch of pipe tobacco
and clean wool socks against the chill.
traffic noise ground and air on the sidewalk outside
the Schnitzelburg coffeeshop
the song of a conversation not in English – a light, stale breeze, coffee black
and blackberry muffin warmed
the door dash driver, twice returned
with the IT’S ALL GOOD font license
plate
August cicadas yodeling death ballads from the trees
the neighborhood tweaker shuffles, waits
chews his fingernails, pops pimples
on his knees outside the old man’s house
next door. On his more put together days
he puts on the makeshift fuckboy,
tries to erase the age in his face
with turned ’round baseball caps
and intentionally ripped jean shorts
wearing paper thin: thin as what ties
together any hallucination, only to fade, to die
a civilization decivilizing — burning in August
like unwatered tomato plants,
this dream dead on the vine
this alarm sounding too close to time
