summer somewhere

They all add up, they do:

a leaf, and a leaf, and another.

Soon the trees are bare.

But look around you:

Even in the naked cold of winter,

even when the sun

can only just be bothered

to peer above the corn-stubble

of yesterday’s horizon

it is always summer

somewhere.

While girls cry in stairwells,

boys are playing hockey in the gym.

While someone is falling—

asleep or whatever—

someone is knotting a tie;

someone is boiling an egg;

someone is packing their school bag

and thinking about their day.