Contributor: John Kropf

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In the morning
even the sun seems lethargic
a runny red yoke, reluctant to rise above the horizon
its tired rays bathe the street in sepia and melancholy
your lush green lawn of May
is now a patchwork of dead spots and desiccated wisps
like the whiskers on an ancient holy man
A scattering of scorched brown leaves
-- the ones that weren’t strong enough to make it until October --
lie in the backyard like a school of beached Starfish
In town, the streets are empty
public places without any public
as if its part of some government experiment
vaporizing all signs of life
except the white noise of the cicadas
or maybe everyone has gone to the beach to swim and sleep
trying to forget the end of summer.


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I'm an attorney and writer living in Arlington, Virginia. I have two books to my name: Unknown Sands: Journeys Around the World's Most Isolated Country, a first hand account of traveling the central Asian country of Turkmenistan and a legal reference book that has nothing to do with poetry. I keep a blog on books and poems on an unscheduled basis, http://compulsivelyaimless.blogspot.com/