Indian Summer
by Ben Mazer

This forgotten weather lets me down.
The unexpected slow boat out of summer
burns with color and complete. Missing only
all the words that needed to be said
which yet they are full of mostly now,
the purpled shriveled trees, standing and waiting,
those long low roads where day and evening cross
in an admonition like a longing.

It is a cipher, nothing else will do
to still the fullness in air or cement,
black or blue in shadow, no eye hear
any sign, smiling in the sighing of sorry
flower, laughing in the corn
like fairy tales, telling us what to do.