I miss summer
I miss all its apparent infinities
Possibilities like pebbles on a shingle beach
I drowned in them
The infinite skies
The infinite ocean
And clouds strung up like garments on a washing line
Time was like bubble-gum
And my freedom could be stretched by just breathing into it

I miss summer
I miss wading in blue rather than grey
Or brown
Or orange
Because the trees played
Ring-a-ring-o-roses
And the wind sang the refrain
The sunsets used to suspend themselves just for me
Like a child was commissioned to paint all over
That great big blue tarpaulin

I miss summer
I miss procrastinating minus guilt
I miss flicking through my life
Like the weeks were library shelves
I miss sitting by the fountain in town
Until the word ‘Deadline’ had no meaning
I miss catching busses and the sun dust on the windows
I miss the fact that we had forever
To lick windows and ice-creams
I miss flip-flop days
And catching-rain-in-T-shirts days
And pretending to be limitless

I’ve lived about a decade and a half
So The Time Of My Life is just about due
But I walk home from school
Via the swing sets and roundabouts in the park
And watch the kids who’ve not yet learned
Why trees scrape back their leaves
And strangle themselves with gossamer nooses
In autumn
They fling like drunken spinning tops
And down their hysteria like shots
And I can’t help feeling old
I’m not a young and beautiful love affair
I’m a cast-aside leaf
Who’s only too aware that she’s thin as paper
Shrivelled as morning bed sheets
Grey as the cigarettes God’s smoking
I’ve started to wonder
Why these aren’t known as my Autumn Years
Because breathe me out
And watch me fall