Things always end in the Summer

I woke up and I wasn't yet sure
if it was a dream or no
I was on the sidewalk of a main street
and the house that was facing me
was in the Cape Cod style

the construction: ship lap
and it was pained white
as was the gapped picket fence

grinning like an English girl

I used to know
there was the narrowest strip of garden
between the wrap around veranda and the fence
and in it were growing hollyhocks and sunflowers

and sweetpeas
in another life it would have been
somebody's grandmother's house
but now it was a dentist's office
without parking in the rear

crickets were singing under the porch
or maybe it was the hydro wires
humming
we were told about that in the old days
I don't think anybody had ever seen a cricket
but a lady I know said the cricket
is her totem
and the ant and the frog her spirit helpers
and a teddy to bear witness
and God knows what taboo
kept her from singing
but her wavy brown hair
made a storm on a her brow
when you talked
or looked at her too closely
and her eyes fixed and darted
when she was worried
or suspected a stare

when a car went past
the spell broke
and I knew it had been a dream
the house was still there
but the paint on the fence
was chipped and peeled
revealing some 40s green underneath
and the deck was in disrepair
and the windows were broken
and boarded
and there was an old tire
on top of the hollyhocks
that nevertheless reached into the air
the purple ones holding their ruffled heads
high

as another car went past
and I checked my watch
and rushed to my appointment
with a destiny
that neither screamed nor mocked.