Goodbye, Summer.
The forearm-held hand props up the chin. It’s one of those lazy, sleepy holds perfected in the back of algebra class. Elbow-skating on simulated wood grain, shining in fluorescent splendor. The face saved from a certain desk-top death by the always vigilant neck.
These arms have been on holiday while the eyes and the brain begin to cool beneath the screen.
A widowed, friendless window fan has been a blessing and a nuisance since the heat first hit the streets. Blades grinding against the screen like sped-up, nervous chatter. A lower hum might be plenty to lead me through the dwindling humidity of an early September evening.
Summer is trying to say goodbye without having to speak the words. Hints of discoloration are beginning to tug at the deep greens. The grass and the overgrowth settle their hips, slowing down over the saddle, a gallop, to a canter and a trot.
There’s Summer! In the methodist church parking lot, running away with a pack of his dad’s stale Newports and a Ronsonol-soaked zippo, visions of a lonesome crowded west unfocus on an orange down vest.
Feathered hair, mail-order puka shell necklace. Heaving breathless through the cattails and tall wet grasses. Camera lenses flare with a disorienting spin, electric yellow lights make heavy trails between thoughts. The desperate nature of a creature that can’t stand getting caught.
(The half-assed escape ended at a Pilot on the edge of town. Passed out between two cruddy diesel pumps, the cops were effective at simultaneously wolfing Slim Jims and getting Summer back home and in bed before daylight.)
Shuffling out there under the cool night sky, Summer waits to make a permanent break for it. Hanging fire ’til slumber swallows the soul, ’til Odin and his valkyries pick sides to play kickball in Valhalla under Autumn’s looming golden light.
Collapsing days, falling leaves, dropping degrees, falling snow. To let it all come down.