ELEGY FOR SUMMER by Howie Good & Cynthia Gray

September speaks to you in tongues.
It tells the truth. A droplet of blood on white tile,
a sparrow singing in the airport atrium.
No one ever questioned whether you'd arrive,
only where you'd arrive and why.
In September your purpose is obscured
like a god whose name it's forbidden to utter.
Quietly, the whole world asks for your devotion.
You cleave to the mystical meaning of the numeral five,
unfolding five fingers to reveal an empty hand.
"Emptiness is but fullness turned inside out,"
says the woman asking you for change
as the wind starts blowing off the water.

© 2010

Howie Good is the author of the full-length poetry collections Lovesick (Press Americana, 2009), Heart With a Dirty Windshield (BeWrite Books, 2010), and Everything Reminds Me of Me (Desperanto, 2011). With Dale Wisely, he is the co-founder of the digital chapbook publisher White Knuckle Press, http://www.whiteknucklepress.com

Cynthia Gray has exhibited work at Sculpture Center, NY; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and other venues. She lives in Brooklyn and writes at collectiveexperience.org.