Probably It Will Be Summer Again
       

one of these days, and if it is I'll swim,
bobbing up and down over probably,
it will be summer and my god I'll say hello
to people who don't live in my house,
it will be summer and my eyes reluctant after a full day
of refracted ocean light and dolphin-squint, or maybe
library and carousel and everyone's bright
skirts, bright sunglasses, bright burns and canvas bags,
I'll rejoin the perpetual chorus of We should,
perpetual chorus of Let's, my god my best friend's baby
who's talking now, my god the bay is still there
and I promise I will be a fool for humans and all
wild proclivities, I will gently turn horseshoe crabs
right-side-up, I will not tell myself Maybe a meteor
or Maybe a phone call or Maybe a sudden shift
in atmosphere, I will remind myself of mouths
moving in ways that are summer and of my skin
casual next to someone else's skin and the soft
salt smell and haunted house shrieks, and Probably
I will say, Probably I will make myself say, and I will say it
and I will say it until it is who and where,
it is who and where we are.

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Copyright © 2022 Catherine Pierce All rights reserved
from 32 Poems
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission