A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S SONNET

Summer nights may be short, but they can slug
Like winter can’t. Humidity salts heartache,
And a cricket’s really a horrid bug
When you think of it, because it will take
The time to keep time like a mad drummer
Fixated on a single, small cymbal.
Give me a break, a more solid summer
Beyond tic-tocking time; summer so nimble
It eludes the looming lust of harvest,
Of bankers counting kernels of corn-gold.
Of sunsets early and shifting southwest,
Of frost and fading and fondness gone cold.
Summer shouldn’t stand for greed and brevity.
Summer should stand for hope and levity.