Summertime

Summertime

days hiccup and skip
the jumbled structure
that kept them ordered
and orderly stretched
like so much canvas on a frame
collapsed in splintered fragments
of sunlight on the floor
town left the circus
left the acrobats unsuspended
in the middle of the air
and with no one to catch them
no one to count them
the days slide by unbroken
unmindful of the undertow
like sunlight on the placid face
of a muddy brown river