Day shifts into grayscale at dusk, giving way to

Shadowed benchmarks that show the way to dreaming.

That shell of summer in early fall

Trembles under hard winds.

It might break, like the exoskeleton of a cicada,

The first time October hits 40 degrees.

...

Rain drives us inside, and we start to shut up for hibernation.

Warm pumpkins baking, the smell of bread unceasing, raisins and apples and squashes spilling out of cellar stores;

Then us, like little larks, warm in a tree-borough.

...

While we hide out, it feels like the world is on pause.

Too much snow for crime, too quiet for all the frenzied momentum of the other seasons.

But burrow down, under the floor, into the dirt, and through the core.

Elsewhere: hot, colorful regions clamor on.

...

The internet’s shoddy with the heavy-wet weather,

But I can make it out: the rest of the world has not ceased to exist. Thank you, CNN.

As this sinks in, boyfriend’s cat rips through the house, pumped up on rabies and caffeine from the looks of it.

That cat’s a bastard, can’t die soon enough.

...

I’m gauging the need for more wood.

Step out to get some (fires in January can’t be too big, I’d say) annnnnd

See a beard, wearing clothes and trudging toward the house.

An outsider might suspect the beard belongs to the lumberjack I found myself living with two years ago, but I know that beard.

This one’s odd.

And it’s using the butt-end of a hunting rifle to obscure its tracks in the snow.

...

Presently, I go inside.

Since I am over-wintering by myself, I entertain many thoughts all at once:

Rapist

Escaped murderer

Jean Val Jean

Character from a Jack London story

Neighbor with a burst pipe

Random drunk hunter

...

In keeping with the low-drama winters of the Poconos, it turns out to be the latter of these;

Poor fellow found his way home eventually and I didn’t see him again,

Not even in April when everything melted and people recommenced activity—

Lawn care and the like.

Meaning seems to flux with the seasons,

And in summer I feel purpose again.

Less like a bear and more like a person who works at coffee shops with solid internet connections.

However late it grows in the evenings, the sun persists,

Residual heat,

In the middle of the night

It finally seems dark

And night is full in summer.