Matter Of Course

a sestina

The college students have left for summer.
Hallways are as let veins with no flow of life –
cleaning fluid, like formaldehyde, scent the bare walls
as sterility signifies loss.
Then, the graveyard in the parking lot –
wood and fabric gravestones of a once-upon-a-time living:

Couch after couch, remainders of subtracted living;
left for the promised cushion of Mistress Summer.
Into her arms they cast their lot,
hoping for the comfortable life,
hoping against loss,
safe within her walls…

Free within her walls,
they play the otter with its oyster-hunt living –
and maybe it’s because they are young that they disregard loss
and dive into the brilliant greens and blues of summer,
laughing, striding, being massaged by life
as they toast one another, “this is our lot.”

Escapees, rescued as was Lot,
from the coming down of walls,
from the ending of life –
into this new land of living,
into this wishfully forever summer –
swerving from the unsheathed sword of loss.

Wild in sorrow is how they define loss
(which of course should be no one's lot).
Diplomats of a foretold summer –
negotiators who can't see walls,
this idealism gone to seed sprouts living –
hopeful in love and the fountain of youthful life.

The future, an animal with no predator, is their life –
the forgotten past, their only loss –
vacations are the model for day-in, day-out living.
They do not ask for a lot –
but to stay young, bound within a nomad's walls,
these profiteers of summer.

Their life is too short not to risk looking past the given lot –
loss will elude them for a time as they do not hide behind walls –
they go on living, these children of summer.