So, summer comes —
sweet streaming freedom,
if only for a moment,
the body memory of that release
stretching far into adulthood
infusing the smell of privet
with aching undertones

There will be years for engineering lives,
which still take on a life of their own
and fly along between the lurches
where everything falls down. We pick it up,
we readjust the load.

It now has all those memories,
each long enough to get lost in,
packed in bundles like a year of papers
to take home
to pack in bins
for some later reckoning
while summer sings its magic
through our bones.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 20, 2016