Endless Summer

By Nate Pritts b. 1974 Nate Pritts

. . .

It was the summer I fucked up the summer fucked up me

fucked up a fuck-up in the summer & I spent time laying under stars

too much time I wasted the stars you lied to me under the stars

& the summer was endless the summer endless it was an endless summer

. . .

endless & I said things like “If I ever see you again”

but I’ll never see you again I never saw you again I made sure of that

& I circled the lake I went in circles the lake was endless it was

summer I fucked up too much time & I never saw you again & I

. . .

circled & it was endless & the stars lied to me the summer

light moving so slowly I saw the summer light move endless

& when I see you the trees will cluster green rage green trees raging

with love endless love & I’ll never see you again I made sure of that

. . .

wasted under the stars the slow summer light the endless fuck-up

& you never again you lovely you summer you everything that is now

never again whatever that may be the rage I loved me under the stars

then & now endless wasting away me haze wandering around endless

. . .

haze it was endless too much time & you lied to me & I said things like

I can’t describe the air on my skin can you can you please I know it was

important & the light from stars moved so slowly & you moved off

forever how can you save everything everything important endless

. . .

summer light the fuck-up the lake a circle circling the lake

how can you save everything how can I answer you the light of summer

stars I’m sorry for my light the endlessness of my endless & my fuck-up

the me that is now looking back & thinking & this summer circling

. . .

Nate Pritts, "Endless Summer" from The Wonderfull Yeare (a shepherd’s calendar). Copyright © 2009 by Nate Pritts. Reprinted by permission of Cooper Dillon Books. www.cooperdillon.com

Source: The Wonderfull Yeare (a shepherd’s calendar) (Cooper Dillon Books, 2009)

Biography

Founder and editor of H_NGM_N literary journal and H_NGM_N BKS, Nate Pritts was born in Syracuse, New York. He earned an MFA from Warren Wilson College in 2000 and a PhD in creative writing and British Romanticism from the University of Louisiana, Lafayette, in 2003. His full-length collections of poetry include Sensational Spectacular (2007), Honorary Astronaut (2008), and The Wonderfull Yeare: a shepherd’s calendar (2010), Big . . .

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