KS Culbreth

Last Green of Summer

i.
Enrobed in this suddenly
sullen vapor of lost
time and sand-scattered
dream, I wonder if you
are aware how precious
these several last
lulling moments together,
how foreign and as if
of another’s life and
time. No, though it
is ending, these moments
too precious to fade
cannot be of my life.

ii.
Beneath this glitter
sky a pulse flickers
and heavy lids strain
to remain open, eyes strong
seeing, seeing
last green of summer
of a heat that must simmer
into autumn (removed
by an old semester)
seeing, seeing
the whole of the halved,
at last a glimpse
of a red
the cardinal red
of a stranger’s lips;
autumn is a gravity
that closes my
eyes at long last
and as evening clasps
this darkness to
the curtained lids
unseeing and unseeing
but feeling the
mysterious
the feather touch
of a stranger’s lips,
and, like the summer
(the cardinal the bliss)
swifter then swifter
by day and by year,
the mystical touch
of swift lips is
nearer, nearer
then gone.