August is All You’re Allowed

It’s a log cabin I hole myself
up in Thoreau-style, my only neighbors
the pines, cedars, the black walnuts
littering the floor with their dense body
musty, bittersweet, thick
NPR calls it the un-walnut and
the black birds agree, knocking
the fat fruit from the canopy
embodying how thump is sounded out
by the mouth, tha-ump, tha-ump
it sinks through
the air like the winged
seed of a maple – samaras –
they’re called, the word a gob of honey
slinking down the lip
of a mug, samaras, samaras, they evolved
to fly, to carry their seeds to sunnier more
hospitable places, to keep tucked in, tucked
away, tucked beneath the brush
where the white dotted fawns
lay spindle under spindle leg, quiet and
waiting. When you spot them, you stop.
You hold your breath.
You move on.