The Last Line

Summer Come Now

Is the double meaning the intention to be

Elusive or more precise? I watch as winter

Slips silently off the maple buds, and all the gray

Areas between seasons manifest in shades

Of sky. It will change, and you can’t make it stay.

So myself. At least I’m moving, too. At least

I’m never still. But I can make the change be,

Can’t I? Make the deeper blue summer air

Come faster in every breath, the need to make

A sound like the easy leafing maples,

A sound like stars, slow and many-pointed.

Double Entendre

As if it were a skill and not my nature

I steal the cold from the morning air,

Inhaling, exhaling heat in the form

Of sound, visibly gray, the stronger

Sense of the word. The garden snake

Is the double meaning—the intention.