Last or Next-to-Last August Sonnet

Outside my window leaves are turning yellow already. The business of summer is wrapping things up, and the coming weekend is the final inventory when summer cottages are closed and kids are back to school for better of for worse. August is neither cruel nor joyous so its end brings neither relief nor real sorrow. What it does bring is that real world which the summer so successfully disguises in vacation apparel and sunglasses. It’s time to get to work.

Sonnet August Twenty-Four

The navy leaves inside an office bay
turn incandescent; they are yellowing
like lemon raincoat corn. On June eleventh,
they cashed a check bulging with overtime
endorsed by green executive directors,
foil-embossed with Bank of America’s
insignia and fauna. Thunderstorms
attended afternoons while lightning lunched
at cafeterias replete with fog
machines that eat your quarters in the woods.
Soon they’ll report to January though,
when business of deciduous sedans
will wander in the reprimands of private
mountaineers and slides of wildcat sun.

~Son Rivers 2005