The August of Our Lives

Something about the weight of weather in summer,
mid-morning, that reminds the lips of desire
and the cruel, measured drip of time.
And it’s true, back then, when I came home,
whenever that was, no one was waiting at the window;
nobody cared. And yet, here, among the just-hung wash,
I feel as heavy as the half-spun quilts, as taught & frayed
as the line. It is the heaviest of months and we are all,
now, tired with waiting: the puzzled ground
beneath the basil & lilac as it stretches toward the sky; the sky
as it sinks lower & lower like a mother in the final month
of her greatest love. Is it fulfillment or release that we want
as we wait for the rain that we know will come, at first,
imperceptibly, and then, later, inescapably? One day,
there will be a knock at the door and I will have returned
to you: my hair, damp, mid-day, as it always was; my heart, too full,
as it always will be.

Terry L. Kennedy
“The August of Our Lives” is from Until the Clouds Shatter the Light that Plates our Lives (Jeanne Duval Editions, 2011).