Arvilla Fee
Summer’s End
He stares at the ground. Scuffs his feet like a school boy caught going down the playground slide head first. His face is flushed in the late August sun, perhaps from our hours spent on the floating dock, perhaps from embarrassment. I don’t say anything. A deliberate choice. I know my silence will drive him mad. Plus, I have nothing to say. He’d said it all earlier. He was going off to college. No sense keeping up a relationship surely doomed to fail given the distance and time apart. I’d seen it coming. The hints of pulling away. The gaps in conversation. Averted eyes when I’d mentioned seeing him fall break. But I’d put it off as dread on his part, fooling myself as long as I could. But here we are. End of the line as they say. I can no longer fool anyone, least of all myself. He leans in for an awkward hug, but I hold my arms stiffly at my sides so that he bumps against my hip bone like a body meeting a fence post. I’m sorry, he murmurs, his lips close to my ear. I nod, turn, close the door to my house with a deafening click.
pieces of photographs
there’s no shame
in confetti
About the Author
Arvilla Fee teaches English Composition for Clark State College and is the poetry editor for the San Antonio Review. She has published poetry, photography, and short stories in numerous presses. Her poetry books The Human Side and This Is Life are available on Amazon. For Arvilla, writing produces the greatest joy when it connects us to each other.