Daisies still smear the soft meadows
lying outside my living room window.
Petals of the heliotrope have almost given up,
lie limp in the shade. Summer is aging.
Soon loosestrife will take charge.

The telephone man is here, talks
incessantly as he installs my second line.
You know what goes on in Washington
in summer—those politicians in large boats
out on the Potomac squeezing the buns
of sweet young things? I hate even the thought
of politicians, don’t you?

Boats adrift, the sun’s haze seems
to ripple the surface of the water,
not much breeze. Looking out, I respond,
I don’t think about politicians much
anymore.

Outside my window, marsh grasses
Bend in small gusts of wind,
arch as if in ecstasy.
Like some sleepless revelers
the crickets never seem to quiet,
their chorus rising to a crescendo

of summer’s end, and isn’t that the faint
sound of a band rounding the corner,
one last dah-thump, one last thrust
of daisies, one last night
for the heliotropes almost
exhausted from it all.