Suffocating heat by mid-afternoon,
barefoot relief by dusk.
3 am – an ease arrives, just a breath, just enough…
7 am, the smallest delicious murmur
of autumn’s cool reveals itself.
The year has turned,
and despite a forecast of triple digits today,
I can already smell
musky late October rain approaching.
That’s the thing
about the end of summer: it’s achingly familiar.
It’s predictable
and makes no apologies for being the same —
year after year after year.
But I am not the same,
nor is my heart.
And this too,
is achingly familiar.
© martha lee phelps
