All the windows open all night, the barely scented air barely moving, the walls hoarding heat so that the only relief is to go outdoors. The darkness is pale even before the waning moon rises. Summer creeps up, and nothing can be done about it. I walk across the lawn and the drying blades of grass crunch slightly. I can feel the moisture draining from everything. Too soon, light bleeds into the eastern sky. It's going to be a scorcher.
Sunday Verse
by Mark Strand
Moontan
The bluish, pale
face of the house
rises above me
like a wall of ice
and the distant,
solitary
barking of an owl
floats toward me.
I half close my eyes.
Over the damp
dark of the garden
flowers swing
back and forth
like small balloons.
The solemn trees,
each buried
in a cloud of leaves,
seem lost in sleep.
It is late.
I lie in the grass,
smoking,
feeling at ease,
pretending the end
will be like this.
Moonlight
falls on my flesh.
A breeze
circles my wrist.
I drift.
I shiver.
I know that soon
the day will come
to wash away the moon's
white stain,
that I shall walk
in the morning sun
invisible
as anyone.
