Day 770: Late August

Late August - Margaret Atwood

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