Summer in May

 

By May the mosquitos have already bitten

Taken the blood of the sweetest young

This is their honey, their sugar, their life

Passengers on unwilling hosts

 

By June will I remember your face

Were you distracted or were you focused

Did you want to taste the honey, the sugar, the life

Or leave it at that like anonymous boats

 

By July it’s possible that all I’ll feel is the heat

Sliding down my back like an invisible eel

I’ll sip at the edge of the lake, honey, sugar and life

Stripped of any sense of what sinks and what floats

 

By August we could be going according to script

How do you do, I’m fine how about you, but inside

Longing for that honey, that sugar, that life

Wondering if the mosquitos of May were merely ghosts

 

By September it could still be warm

Or it could be so hot, fire when we touch

Silky honey flowing, melting sugar, the passion of life

All of that latent electricity coming down in volts

 

By October where will you be

Tending embers or carrying coals

The patterns of honey, sugar and life blending into one

Like the edges of wound healed with do’s and don’ts

 

I can’t think much past the autumn of red and gold

Everything is too new and too fresh, being that it’s only May

I must focus on the honey and the sugar separately, life later

Before my mind and these words create the widest of moats

 

For now it’s just summer in May

Butterflies repeat their dreams of greatness

Society offers honey and sugar as well as the elixir of life

While dangling the glittering shiny note of hope