September Comes Anyway

Drinking air in long
sweet drafts. O God, I thought
maybe I was done, I am not done,
the light is breaking over me in waves.
I am not done. I am not real:
of course not. An orange seed
is not an orange tree, let alone
an orange grove, where the girls
do their washing and hear the mill wheel turn.
But there are glancing lights everywhere.
Dilations and contractions. God,
I can be so stupid,
am so stupid, most of the time;
but September comes anyway.