Late Summer as Metaphor for the Self

It’s ten miles through the season
to Hopkins, Minnesota, and I cycle
past lakes the olive color of rot,
a smell of vegetation that says
it’s ready to be turned over
and churned in. The marsh
grass tassels are silvered purple
and hangdog, everything heavy with
impending demise, air thick with
precipitation that will not fall, as if
summer this late is just bated
breath. Even as I pedal by
monarch butterflies building spring
from milkweed ready to burst
into seed or the din of insects
running a hundred circular saws,
no matter how fast I turn my wheels
I can’t get by what I’m already
of. Along the trail, a neighbor’s
tomato plants have gone leggy,
and few flowers are left. Just stingy
breeze and yellowing leaves waving
like Miss Autumn marshalling
the parade from the backseat
of a Chevy where she’s sashed
with fire and dazzling in
her new bling of decay.
Make way.

Sonia Greenfield is the author of two full-length collections of poetry. Letdown, released in March, was selected for the 2020 Marie Alexander Series and published by White Pine Press. Her first collection, Boy With a Halo at the Farmer’s Market, won the 2014 Codhill Poetry Prize and was published in 2015. Her chapbook, American Parable, won the 2017 Autumn House Press/Coal Hill Review chapbook prize. Her work has appeared in a variety of places, including in the 2018 and 2010 Best American Poetry, Antioch Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Los Angeles Review, Massachusetts Review, and Willow Springs. She lives with her husband, son, and two rescue dogs in Minneapolis where she teaches at Normandale College and edits the Rise Up Review. More at soniagreenfield.com.