we don’t have many left.

these hot, sultry, torpid evenings are starting slip out of our sweaty, open-palmed hands into an always arriving too-early autumn, with her unpermissive bedtime schedules, strict post-labor day fashion tenets, and vanishing, candy-sweet tomatoes whom are already making their farewell tour across southern california.

these are my favorite summer nights: graveyard still and swamp hot.

the last few evenings even our screen doors have felt like heavy, velour suffocating drapes. the house is ensconced with the heady scent of magnolia from the candlelight which is illuminating an otherwise pitch dark house. cowboy junkies purr over the speakers as he and i take turns refilling each others’ tumblers with ice.

in the alleys and abandoned homes down the street we hear the neighborhood kids extracting august’s last bits of juice before the bell schedule restarts, the dorm rooms get decorated, and the silly, goofy, relaxed, be as you are, perfect sweethearts slowly get eaten away by the anxiety of the pressure to be cool and the fear of rejection. the steely shields of tough go up, slowly erecting over the carefree, beachcruising babes of the summer. 

hold on to these last few live for the beat of music nights, decide with your belly friendships, keep your eyes closed kisses. 

i actually don’t mind the late-night, early morning insomnia in the summer. it’s so warm, i climb outside to upstairs landing, or i’ll visit the back yard rocking chair. typically i’ll have a beast awaiting my arrival, grouchy at the fur-coated deck they’ve been dealt with, glumly seeking cooler pastures with bellies pressed hard against the cold ground. 

sometimes i lie down too. we listen to the din of the night-time quiet: nocturnal insects diligent with their chores. the cracks and pops up and down the pipes and wood siding of the house tell us we’re not the only ones wrestling with father time. last night we had a gorgeous, low, waning moon. i felt like i could lasso a rope, scale up into its crescent saddle, and watch the space and sea all night long.

hot august nights. they get me. 

my favorite hot, summer night track……