Acquiescence

Summer Porch at Mr. and Mrs. C.E.S. Wood's

by Frederick Childe Hassam

This morning

a breeze

arrived at my doorstep

and called me outside

where I dug out

a buried book

forgotten

from hot summer days

when buzzing iridescent flies

roosted at my black screens

and my afternoons

were white and silent

and if I heard sirens

from the distant city

I curled into myself

from the sound

and if there was chatter

from a neighbor’s porch

I muted its commotion

inside my head

and if cool air

asked permission to touch me

I allowed it to stretch out

across my skin

and now

with the fall of night

I abandon the book

and let the shimmering stars

in the heavens

and the helpless moon

in its orbit

replace a stranger’s

scribbled delusions

at dressing the naked

entrails of my soul.