Summer’s last thunderstorm

Nineteenth of September, nearly supper.
First the trees start whispering questions.

Leaves swerve to ground like practice seasons.
Is nothing too green for grief, the trees ask.

The answer scrapes the top of the sky.
Bulldozer uprooting forever for the new estates.

Is it over? Almost. It’s almost over.
Then rain, soft, like em-dashes

Between invisible words, unspoken charters.
Whatever they are building up there

Has been redacted already in the unseen
Document of the future, what’s left

Of our uncomposed lives. Word on the tip
Of the tongue in a mouth that closes.

Like clouds closing on a patch of blue.
The thunder has forgotten its voice

Is summer’s, and throttles like a biker
Down a darkening road.