September has arrived, but outside 

feels like the inside of a toaster, 

no hint of fall, save the fall 

of a few leaves, 

dried and dropped in charred crisps, 

skittering over baked sidewalks in wind

whipped from heat currents, 

not breeze.

 

When will it snap, 

this crackling skillet of summer?

 

Or will it be me first     snapping 

like bacon fat, 

splattering everything 

in my spitting wrath?

 

Because if I see 

one more illustration 

of cozy-sweatered, woodland strolls

or more pumpkin spiced lattes —

one more autumn-hued hillside

or smoke-sputtering chimney top —

one more squirrel-hollowed burrow

or wistfully witchy landscape –

 

I will snap

 

like bacon

like Aunt Vesta Spellman

like Cain before the fall            

like ejected toast.