Finally, the week when the world
waits under the green gauze

of pollen. Remember you and me
clumping up like bees and strawberries?

Now I swat at the former to protect
the boys while they smear their faces

with the latter. Now some bourbon, no ice.
Please stay with me on this porch

as the sun sets in our eyes, sinks
below the neighbor’s roofline across

Mendenhall where he’s out on his swing—
the department chair who no longer

remembers his dog’s name, his wife
flickering at the kitchen window. He nods

toward us. The only sky he sees is the dark
that’s coming—A world of trouble

is what you told the boys to expect
if they left their beds to follow us out here.