Charles Jensen: Summer Ends

I will not name you again.

I will not reduce you like a memory to your smallest parts,
little fantastic machine-heart slaving away its heat
little controlled burn
little smolder-fire wicking toward the dry brush.

I will not replace this moment with the next,
will not exchange you with clocks,
with steady breaths or the tsk-tsk of the nearest metronome
the pulse of lost touches that never made landfall.

I will not end when the summer ends,
this small, small moment bird-like in its nervousness
our bodies near touch-to-touch
there are new nervous octaves nested in my throat

which will be anything for you,
be bird for you,
be timepiece of wrists for you, be shadow and wind for you,
be jeans for you. Licks for you. Oh, summer ends

bemoaning its own misfortune. I sit near you
and the dusk comes on like the dizzy sweet sting of your cologne.

For you I could be the longest day, all of your sunlight,
if for me you made yourself coda,
made nightfall, made yourself nest.