SUMMERLESS

The lake is so cold the man from Bavaria

is the only one who swims in it and only

because he is practicing for the northern

bay water of the Pacific. Late,

in the field, a handful of lightning bugs.

Too chilled to flit about, they huddle

in the grass, morse coding a calculated

message to the kidnapped summer.

What could their fires change, brief

as a girl's love for a gaudy ring found

by its shine in the bottom silt? Snuffed

green lanterns, powerless

heat asleep in the wings.

Yet they are what haunts me

as the summer passes.