Packing for the Summer

It’s a night for sepia stars

Smiling softly their twinkle-less smiles

For the brink of a season – printed paper-boats

Bottles and bottles of homemade preserve

Newspaper and taxis and crumbled tickets

Where we were – and where we’ll stay.

Goodnight faces, the curtains still whisper;

It’s a night for remembering – we’re happiest today.

Follow the cold star, the bright star, the still star

The waters are pouring, the dusk and the day

Sneakers and cartons and bright yellow flowers

Geometric magic – and the rest have to stay.

Huge purple cases with nametags – and scribbles

Stamps and stamps and signature ink.

Journeys are ribbons – and journeys are nametags

And journeys are brinks – and they’re here to stay

The wrapped and the packed and the sent away bagged

The stored and the floored and the above-the-front-doored

Some things are happy – and some things just fine

And some things best kept between two frozen lines

But the most that could happen with fried-egg scorched sunsets

Are the things that have left – not the things that have stayed.

They come back greeting – in the thick of our meeting –

The sunsets are fried eggs and the bags are unpacked

The lines that were frozen melt softly and gently

Into two little pigtails – and they tumble back.

Into still framed smiles – some twinkle-less smiles

When we move ahead leaving sepia behind

And the stars are the ones that’ll stay here forever

And we – very quietly – have left them behind.