Mid-summer Crisis

Pat Galvin

After an evening of long summer light, when you have been out gardening gloved like a burglar,
making delicate adjustments
to the black graph of a skyline. Rising from my desk
I find you in the gathering dusk
like some intruder shifting landscape. You almost melt into the scene,
your arms are supple branches
the colour of your clothes
blends with shrub and flower;
your soft voice calling for
water-hose or spade
seems far off, disembodied. And just for an instant
I imagine you disappear,
after making supper to go out and find only your familiar touch on every leaf, your smile
on every flower.
Until you come back in leaving behind the green hose
like a snake on the darkening lawn and wake me from my dream. Mid-summer madness, you smile. Or was it your heart
being quietly stolen away,
your love disappearing
in the last light
over the edge of the horizon.