Summer Ending
        after Edward Hopper

Under a dull orb of porch light, they stand
motionless. The moon rises like a skull,
and they're desperate for sound, a twig snap
or small leaf rustling, anything. He thought
he'd won her, balanced his job all summer,
fishing on the lake, kept her simmering
like a boiling pan. She leans on the wall,
her pink halter top concealing little,
her legs, long and smooth like the white clapboard.
In his dark blue shirtsleeves, hand on his heart,
he wouldn't dare drape the other across
her bare upper arm, at least not tonight.
But he would love to slip fingers through her
hair. He imagined the way he'd trail them,
as if a slack hand rippling the water's
shimmery surface. She'd take off her top
and skirt, beckon him into the night air.
He'd undress, follow. But their eyes never
meet. She's lost, turning away, seeming to
look beyond the soles of her tennis shoes,
into the future, into the dry grain
of her stiffened heart. The closed door, a small
gap in the curtains, people in the house
probably sleeping, inches between them,
summer is ending on her parents' porch.
But they are silent, unable to move,
afraid to take even a single breath.

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Copyright © 2022 Robert Fillman All rights reserved
from House Bird
Terrapin Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission