June 8th,2009 For Ezra, Wyatt And Kurt Poem by r james sterzinger

three days before my first reading
I am out in the rain
the air: cool deep thick
I feel like
a bedbug
under a wet mattress

the gray of the sky
wraps between the black boughs
then around the green leaves of the trees
that stand as sentry witnesses
in the corners of my yard

June is indecisive
July knows what she wants
August sits pregnant in the heat
September shuts down like
a lover who's had one last fling
and despises herself for it.

this is early June
this day's made it's decision
wet, damp, sullen
'so it goes, ' said the dead writer
'so it goes...'

three days before my reading
I look to between the wet black branches
two mating squirrels are fighting
their squabble reminds me of my own


three days before my first reading...
I roll my poems through my head
walk across the yard to the shed
I wonder who
cleaned Auden's gutters
in the spring?