later you will say that it was the summer of love,
tongue flitting toward corner of your mouth.
“hotter than any i remember,” you’ll tell us
with a slow smile, “filled with sex and adventure.”
but now, while you are there in that slanty attic
room — red shirt in a box, window cracked a bit,
crossed legs on clean sheets — slicing an avocado
and remembering the salt downstairs, you just hum
a sweet song. happy to eat, unsalted and unripe,
dragging your teeth along the shell. it’s 83 degrees.
the pit will stay on your dresser for a week.
and when you finally throw it out, this moment
will mix with the millions, fall between the cracks
of every kiss and catastrophe. and so they slip away.
you will tell us of this summer as it never was.

several years later, when you next slice through
that thick-skinned fruit and cut your thumb in a straight
line down, blood smeared in green butter— stop. smile
slow. remember the summer as it really was. remember
the summer of stifled sounds and small things
in large rooms. of the grackle perched on the ceiling fan.
the perfect pizza and perfecting the morning drive.
the summer of thinking much and saying little.
of laying still at four a.m. dreading a time
when you’ll be in bed by nine. the summer of ambivalence.
the summer of habit, of minimum wage. the summer of 2009.
because you are not in love and the summer is four
months with a special name. four months spent thinking how later
you might call this long, hot nothing something else.
how later, you might call it the summer of love.