Elokuu Järvi

Wavelets slapping flat back the boat poured from our oars
creasing and washing the lipped glass skin of sky
polished flat by the blue between beds of pale drifted grey.
Later, a smooth bumping across fields of chopped water

pulling against the earth as trees scrape the shore's crumbling
lines and lips mouthing a quick-bristled, leafed penumbra -
we carry clunked, resonant steps into a level path undertaken
by the skimmed pieces of last year's shore, and supper's glutted hide.

The wind dries our teeth into smiles and furrows us, sucked and
combed aside. Too shallow there for careless talk, when
as guests we float in borrowed boats and boots thick-waxed before us.
The rolling coal-breath building to scent and drip us wood-warm

with the day spent yet blue and clear, stilled expecting night and
made to wait in the gloaming. We sit between the lake
and the house, grown lighter for the shutting down and drawing-to
as water dries and fire fades, faces paling for the midnight moon.