Summer lingers on,
in butterflies’ bright wingbeats
and bee-bowed flowers.

Succulent berries
ripen in golden hedgerows,
cobwebbed with dawn mist.

Birds seek southern sun,
while industrious squirrels
cache abundant hoards.

Brisker winds rattle
apples down: speckled, blemished,
but lusciously sweet.

Children kick through leaves,
giggling, hurling handfuls—
pretending they’re snow.

Deborah writes at an old desk surrounded by five hundred pet bugs.