He adds less and less:
   haiku lines in late July—
a crab clung to tongue.

                        •

He makes a month of moth-
   wings, calls it summer’s new light—
each day drawn to us.

                        •

He undoes August,
   gives it July’s bursted heart,
legs of long dead June.

                        •

He drags the moon out.
   It looks nothing like August
nor the moon even.

                        •

There, in the woodshed,
   he holds what’s left of August:
the veins of summer.

Michael Trocchia is the author of The Fatherlands and Unfounded. He teaches philosophy at James Madison University and works in the library. He lives in Staunton.