-This poem reflects on the first cool morning at summer’s edge, when reaching for a sweater becomes a small bodily recognition that the season has begun to turn.

The air comes cool through the open door,
enough to raise the skin awake,
and on the hook beside the stairs,
a sweater waits where spring had left it.

The garden still holds summer green,
tomatoes warm beneath the leaves,
yet hands slip gladly into sleeves,
before the morning walk begins.

The sun will climb, the day grow warm,
the sweater folded by midday,
but something in that early chill,
has changed the language of the light.

So much of late summer turns this way,
not with ending, but with noticing,
one extra layer against the dawn,
and the body knowing what comes next.