All the summer people have gone home
so the vacation rentals stand empty.
I—by myself—
am the sum of my neighborhood’s congregation.
The birds seem happy
as they dart about the trees.
Loneliness will not set in
until the first snow.
I will wax nostalgic about the people
who annoyed me months before.
Margaret was here all summer
for the stillness in which to find herself.
She kept going to the dock
but could never quite get her leg across
the gap between the wooden boards
and the moored sailboat she inherited.
copyright © 2022 Kenneth P. Gurney
Umflop 