Late August

This is the plum season, the nights

blue and distended, the moon

hazed, this is the season of peaches

with their lush lobed bulbs

that glow in the dusk, apples

that drop and rot

sweetly, their brown skins veined as glands

No more the shrill voices

that cried Need Need

from the cold pond, bladed and urgent as new grass

Now it is the crickets

that say Ripe Ripe

slurred in the darkness, while the plums

dripping on the lawn outside

our window, burst

with a sound like thick syrup

muffled and slow

The air is still

warm, flesh moves over

flesh, there is no

hurry.

Margaret Antwood