if the summer had happened elsewhere

at 5:34 it starts to rain and at 5:47 it begins to pour, lightning striking 

the bay so far we count 8 seconds between the flash, the thud. 

the ladies and gentlemen are packing up their patios, rushing 

through backyard doors and it’s torrential prevents your going,

 trapping you, like a breeze caught in a screened porch. 

if you had really wanted to go you would. suddenly there’s no rush, 

suddenly the day has slowed and nothing will go back to what it was. 

we stand in the doorway barefoot water splashing from the porch 

on our feet and gusts cool our foreheads. pulling strawberries

from the package we watch, talking when needed-- but it is rarely needed. 

for a long moment, a great expanse of hours, it seems everything

will stay this way forever, that the closed distance between us is irreversible. 

even after the dark minutes of clouded cover are lifted, as the following fog 

rises from the water you stay and i hope you mean it. walking to the beach 

we watch it all unfold again, lifting the silence before us to reveal 

that everything was true. laying out heads in the sand 

before standing up to head home. you wait at the top of a hill for me 

and once inside the very porch i watch you stick your hands inside your pockets 

and walk, waving with your one right hand without turning to me. 

i lift a leftover strawberry, take a look inside the mirror, find the infinite again,

 watch my bite fall into my mouth, to know what i look like to you.