Ode to Summer Days and Trite Advice
I await
to yearn for these barefooted afternoons
skinned knees
and so much sunscreen,
inflatable backyard pool
popsicle handprints
boys pissing in the tall weeds.
I attend
to the small and quotidian:
sandal straps and play sand,
training wheels,
quarter-cut sandwiches,
so many swing pushes.
I await
another meltdown,
another ice cream headache.
I await
to recall fondly
crumbs in the carpet,
stains on the sheets,
and to say to a mother
much younger than myself:
cherish all of this
which is most
uncherishable.
Autumn Konopka is a poet, activist, runner, and coffee lover. She teaches, parents, and tries to make the world a better place in and around Philadelphia. Her poems have been (or will soon be) published in Main Street Rag, APIARY, Literary Mama, and Crab Orchard Review, among others. Her chapbook, a chain of paper dolls, was released by the Head & the Hand Press (Philadelphia). In 2016, she was named poet laureate of Montgomery County, PA. She has a BA in English from the University of Pittsburgh and an MFA in poetry from Antioch University.