Art: Alison Prine
Summer Again
when we turn away and busy ourselves we forget the sky
when the sky is forgotten, it stretches past the edge
when the edge recedes clouds tint to red
when clouds tint I feel a nearness, as if we have spoken
when we have spoken it seems a year has passed
when a year has passed it’s like a single sleep
when a single sleep holds hundreds, some splinter, some stain
when stained and spent, the barometer begins to rise
when it rises it means what comes next will be beautiful
when it is beautiful it is summer again
when it is summer again we have bodies
when we have bodies we notice a pull
when there is a pull we turn away to busy ourselves
About the author:
Alison Prine‘s debut collection of poems, Steel, was chosen for the Cider Press Review Book Award and came out in 2016. Steel was a finalist for the 2017 Vermont Book Award. Her poems have appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Shenandoah, Harvard Review, Hunger Mountain, and Prairie Schooner among others. She lives in Burlington, Vermont and works as a psychotherapist.