summer

There are times when you shine
like a million watts of pure electric light,
shimmering as if caught in the glass ripple of the lake we sit by and read our books, quietly basking,
the sunset dimming your brilliance to
a pastel riot of orange and pink.

I drink you in like the soft glow of evening
and let it flow into my guts,
but even though you’re leaving me tomorrow,
tonight I swallow every firefly
to feel them fizzle on my tongue,
I lie on your chest and watch the river run restless
to the cool damp of this fading forest of lamps,
and when the pool of sun has dripped its last
I will surely slip and spill the moon from my fingers
trying to cup the reflection of her past in my hands.

Still, today we had long walks at noon and clear skies and dragonflies of blazing blue
that survive in that shining drop of irridescence;
a memory of you, incandescent.