Frost

I want to fight the frost away
and savor the taste of licorice summers.
Candy apple plastic still scorches
on playgrounds in afternoon glow.
There are golds and yellows somewhere

but here glass fogs from the humidity of shocked lungs.
They remember the easy breathing of warm air
and miss the nose filling breezes of June
and its freshly cut grass.

The spirit of the year is broken,
and, pathetically, all we can do
is lament and watch the bitch die.
She was a flapper draped in a happy pallet,

but all women outlive their charm
just as all men outlive their utility.

I want to fight the frost away
but there is comfort in its necessity.