Outdoor exercise
We decided to go swimming.
Last day of summer! Let’s take advantage of this heat, we said.
So we went to the lake.
Nobody was in the water.
It was a cesspool.
Fluffy brown-streaked foam collected at the shore
Four feet wide.
As if the lake was a giant boiling cauldron of broth
But someone had neglected to skim the gathering proteins off the surface.
Or maybe the sand decided to have a shampoo
But passed out from the heat
Before it finished rinsing.
The lap lane ropes
Normally cordoning off the deepest area
Had desperately pulled themselves from their tethers
And morphed from a 50 yard rectangle
Into a pathetic oblong.
Even out deep,
The water was soggily crusted with dead insects, pollen,
And gray mysteries.
We looked at it
While summer’s warmth punched us repeatedly in the back of the head.
We decided to run instead.
We walked
We ran
We sweated.
The sun soldered our clothes to our skin.
The humidity held its slimy palms
Over our noses and mouths
As we miserably carried it
On an endless, sweaty piggyback ride.
Our reward, we decided,
Was an ice cream treat.
It melted so fast
We had to drink the last of it.
Sayonara, summer
You had your last hurrah
And my god
We’re ready for fall now.
Sarah D. Silvey 