Summer Past

I don’t trust this autumn wind that saunters
into the screened porch and stumbles around
the sharp corners as if trying to settle down
here for the winter,

but there’s little comfort on the concrete floor
even less on the empty picnic table
and the wind keeps rattling around,
talking to itself,
nothing but gibberish to me standing by the door
and listening to this demented ghost
of a summer past;

clearly, it has no place in the house,
but should I let it winter out there
in the porch where no one else would
want to linger…

we have much to say to each other
but instead each of us blows dust in his own wounds
with the bitterness of having to retreat
from a winter we cannot fight.