Days of Summer Gone

It’s too late to go back to that apartment
In Bowling Green, Kentucky, where we slept together
So many nights. I wonder if whoever lives there now
And fucks in that bed ever wonders about us?

If memory’s any good gauge, the place
Must be ghosted with us even now–
Where I read aloud to you the love stories
Of other languages, and where there was no part
Of your body my tongue couldn’t locate in the dark.
Don’t try to tell me you’ve forgotten.

I can’t let them go, those days
Of summer gone, for under my eyelids you move
As you moved through the changes of light in that room.

But it’s raining tonight
In Houston, Texas, and how is your weather
In Berkeley? What happened to us?

The Boylan Blog: Poem of the Week

Joe Bolton was born in Cadiz, Kentucky. He completed a master’s degree at the University of Florida in 1988. He died while looking for the galley edition of Days of Summer Gone, and published two other books of poetry after his death.