Emma

14

Our Summer Made Her Light Escape

out of the cracked window behind
the kitchen sink. She left her shoes.

Just a few months ago, Spring
came with his hands and blossom-salted winds,

and before that, Winter left
his frosty footprints on our roof.

When I was born, my mother says
(and mothers are prone to lie for their children),

the trees all murmured, whispered, sang,
and the crescent in the sky was shrinking.

Maybe that's when my problems started.
Maybe, even though the moon

waxes and wanes, back and forth,
I'm still caught in that shrinking phase.

The desire to be smaller. To grow thinner.
To become just a tiny sliver of light.

Our Summer made her light escape. Now,
Autumn shakes out her hair, flings up

her hands, sways to the music. My head:
caught in a net. My head,

the patchwork puzzle of here and there,
bare branches crossed with shadow,

rain on slivers of broken glass. You.
The wisp of Summer's breath. Insubstantial.

Faerie song. Like my dreams, unraveling
in the harsh morning light. Coming undone.

You,
coming undone.

Our Summer escaped like a runaway bride
out of our sight and out of our lives,

and she pretends she didn't leave us broken.
But in truth? That's me,

there, the unwound thread beneath your feet,
the shards of mirror, patchwork puzzle,

frayed at the edges, and I'd still be whole
if only you'd gotten here a little sooner.