summersend

i am spitting out bark 
or kissing like dandelions
or talking in riddles 
again never can 
remember which.  we 
spool over each other 
in the drying grass
your wrists on my 
ankles tongue down 
my throat by rusted
cemetery gates. he asks
are the days 
shortening but the worst
has not yet come and
autumn lies still 
as theater air 
after final bows.  god 
says be well but means 
be right and i have already
begun walking barefoot 
again although the
ground is not yet cool
enough to bear and my 
boy-flesh scabs over. here, 
outside my window
the trees are relearning 
gold, fragility, rot. do 
you really pray 
for me?  a browned 
leaf trembles above 
my lean-boned hand. i
do, i do, i do–