Northern Summer

I want to go swimming in the brook
like we used to, getting lost in time
until we couldn’t feel our fingers and toes,
only getting out when our lips turned blue.
Wrapped shivering in towels
we’d try to get warm on a rock in the sun,
talking and giggling and imagining.
The no-see-ums or the mosquitoes or the horseflies
finally chasing us home to find
only an hour or two gone
out of the longest short season: summer.