Where Summer
Passes 101216

and all that
summer’s long

her red hair hid
my face

as birds flew
through her blue eyes

rested on the
corners of her smile

and sang of our
love

when the moon
rose

to cover us with
its light

I would watch her

as the days wound down

as the clocks
ticked through their cycles

sweeping time
ever onward

and we spun with
it

along the streets

where we sat in
coffee shops

in quiet
conversations

her sipping tea
and I my steaming coffee

her eyes smiling
at me from above the rim of her cup

her hands
touching mine

now and then

to show

that the magic
she had found in me

would not leave
us

when autumn
stripped the leaves from the trees

and winters
covered our hearts with snow.

---

Chris Vannoy is host of the annual Prose and Poetry in the Park and a prolific performer. He won the San Diego Book Award for Twenty Poems Against Love and a Song for the Air. His book, A Strange Summer, includes “I Got Beat in San Francisco” and “Last Call for Kerouac.” Vannoy is San Diego’s beat poet laureate.