The Academic (Nine Month Contract)
Travis Dolence
Outside my office trees begin
feverishly shedding leaves like ballast
from a sinking ship, grass browns,
turning the color of tanned
summer skin, and skin, once tanned,
begins to fade under dress shirts.
Everything moves slowly.
Enter the monochrome
months of slip-stumbling
cold-weather slurs, manufactured
enthusiasms, long nights punctuated
by whiskey sodas, bad television
and dreamless sleep. And still, and still,
somewhere inside it’s summer,
living on like a regretless hangover
well earned.
