small summer

Yosef and I met the falling sun on the front steps, trying to scrub away the black crust from camp pots. We'd gone canoing earlier, past people jumping from trees into the water under the beating heat. Summer is coming to a close; the geese plump enough for flight, the trees whispering "we are still green but not for long", the period of convalescence from the academic year not quite enough for those returning to high school, but already too long for those not going anywhere at all.