You drag a bag to the subway, light drizzle on the pavement and you fall in line with the Monday morning commuters on their way into fall. Their clothes have an air of defeat. Long pants. Umbrella. Key card. Didn't we just start the summer holidays, how are they over already? On the morning news, the meteorologist says even though it's the end of summer we've some warmer days ahead and you want to shout it from the rooftops. Don't give up before it's time!
In the harbor, a ship lies waiting. One thousand, three hundred thirty-one people board. A few dogs. The Baltic Ocean ahead, not a speck on the horizon for hours until there, at the end, an island, a dock, another group of familiar faces and your heart grows to twice its size again.
Yesterday, in a borrowed doorway, it was all goodbyes. A little too soon, always a little too soon. Two years and change since you waved from the airport window. The years defy belief. His daughter grows into everything you could've hoped, a hundred years ago they waved you off on a train and she was just a baby. A thousand years ago you got drunk in a hidden bar and he didn't tell you she had already been dreamed into existence. Twenty-four hours ago you remembered what it is to carry a moment in your chest that is at once heavy as lead and light as air. The women on the ship say August is basically over but you know they're wrong.
I will carry August with me
always.
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