Friday, August 31, 2018. The last day of the month, and while it is not technically the last day of summer, it certainly feels like the end of something.

And we hate endings. Particularly the endings of very warm seasons.

So today, this last Poetry Friday of August, feel free to pour yourself a glass of your favourite beverage, head on outside, and say goodbye to the month with George Sipos' "August" (from Anything but the Moon).

August

At 3:00 a.m. you pee, let the cat in,
and realize you've left
the water running in the garden.
Is it worse to have forgotten,
or to know that this late in the summer
it matters little either way?

On hot afternoons years ago
you threw a ball against
the back of the house for hours at a time
till your father yelled to stop or the bricks would come loose and
the wall collapse.
It didn't of course (though
who knows whether the house
still stands) but the point was
that anything, however unlikely,
was thinkable then — the ball
going thunk against brick,
coming back to you.

Above the rows of yellowed pea-vines
droplets rise from the sprinkler,
lose momentum,
fall.

Year
after year
you plant a garden, then lose interest.

Night after night
the cat
scratches at the screen.
you let her in.