To an Estranged Wife

August, another year and the same

sour air rises from the fallen fruit.

The days are too hot without the morning

fog to cool and subdue us; we agonize

with the birds and, like them, keep moving.

I cannot trust myself in this weather.

The air suffocates and the fruit trees

bend from their trunks and seem

to melt in the heat.

I listen to the birds and can make

no sense of it. It is another burden,

something I cannot keep or hold.

I think of the cold, of December,

when the little we believe we possess seems

lost to us. Indoors, I break the seal

on the mason jars and there comes to me

everything retrievable of summer:

the tender meat of the fruit, spices and

the succulent air like steam on the window,

your body, still here, leaning gently

against the cupboard doors.