A late August chill fills the night air, quiets the summer noises. It is the last day, the last day, the last day of the month. It feels like a bigger ending than that, a bigger ending than that. A season, a year, an epoch, or maybe just another evening. Goodbye August.

The red key on the jangly key ring opens the padlock on the roll-up gate. My stuff, from the inconsequential to the sentimental, rests neatly, stacked in boxes and rows behind a thick mattress wrapped in a blue tarp-like bag. The red key unlocks my past. The red key stays with me.

The dark purple maple fills the picture window at the front of the house. It looks as if the morning light hasn’t reached that side of the lawn yet. Sleepy clouds shift. The thin ones shuffle and slide. Soon enough the cricket’s chirp will disappear and the leaves will start to fall.

At 3am, it’s dark. At 3:30, it’s still dark. The light from the phone that tells me the time is unnatural in this space. This is one long groan – the waking, the staring, the finally getting up. Not doing so feels pointless. At 4am, it’s dark, but at least I’ve had waffles.

Two crows play call and response sharing the morning’s news. The sky is the color of gray smoke, and the trees don’t seem as green or bright as they were yesterday. Maybe that’s the news these chatty crows share: soon the colors will burst and pop, then drain in the graying light.

The evening air in the darkened house is still. It’s an ice cubes in my drink kind of night. The rise and fall lift of a long sigh soothes my aching back. And the crickets chirp away. With the lights out, I can see the fireflies sparkle and fade. Sparkle and fade.    

Computer glow, lights low. Hi-fi in the summer night. Clap along, sing the song. Knowing everything’ll be alright. Eyes are shut, groove and strut. Bounce and bop and shake that ass. Snap snap freeze, bend your knees. Take me to church, take me to mass. Music lifts, funky rifts – give me more.

It’s midday humid and muted bright. Clouds are on the way. Birds squawk and chirp. Some sing. A mail truck snails its way down the street. Where has this thickness come from, this petrified trunk of an afternoon? Where are the party hats and horns hidden? Are they in that late-day bloom?