He Lowered Summer

What the air conditioner was hiding

HE LOWERED SUMMER
March, 2007

Off the chilling sill he lowered
summer and all the morning birds
that chirped or caroled while we
were unaware, caught as they
were like the soughing trees
and the driving rains in the web
of fan and filter as the season
hummed to thwart the moisture
from our sleeping humid brows--

Upon his sunburned muscles he carried
the metal crate full of frogs
that croaked and geckos that spoke
while we whiled away the hours
on the droning side that sieved the
sounds of summer into a drowning
dirge as sure as the white frothy surge.
Now the season sifts through the
fine screen mesh unbound and ever-free.