August was the most melancholy of months. With its long days that stretched into long lazy shadowed evenings. Gone was the anticipation of June and July, replaced with thoughts that skipped ahead to September and October. School books that had slipped behind desks and beds were reluctantly thought of and the blue on your bathing suit had faded. Skin, once pale and delicate, had become golden and hardened by wind and sun. August is fragments of memories, quickly slapped together, only to be unpacked and organized in November. That scar by your thumb from the splinter of dock, the result of a hasty scramble of flailing bodies under a moonlit sky. The low whistle of a loon in bay, tart lemonade on your tongue, the sweet smell of sweat and the bitter stench of smoke. Conversations picked up from where they rested during the busy times. And room left for silence, silence that wrapped itself around the room, like incense, dancing and curling through the air. Even the grass moved differently in the wind, swaying tiredly, like it almost knew soon the time would come for sleep, buried beneath cool sheets of white ice.
The nights were long, the air had a chill to them, that sent fingers scrambling for sweaters and blankets to curl up under.
Candle flames on screen porches, the unseen future hanging in air
August.
