So long, summer

A collar up,
a fuck-you to summer, now
sand-tanned limbs
are covered
for the first time in months.
Trees dance wildly in a mosh or
pogo, depending on your generation.
Converse drum on
pavements,
they'll be studded with berries soon,
not dropped ice cream or
hot copper coins.
Birds look blustered,
pissed off,
blown off course
and clouds seem bigger than before.
Parents buy pens from WH Smith,
in the hope that a Parker reflects a course for straight As.
Buses bloom with teenage uniforms,
blazers with rolled up sleeves and
cheap Primark scarves,
cramming crisps and
sexting from Blackberries,
whispers between bitchy girls about
the kinds of girls
that I was then.
It was all airless,
oil-hazed,
remembering how to breathe.
Now we think about change. Loss,
and what it means to miss somebody.
Looking for a face in the clouds,
those upside mountains that grace the blocks of flats and
doggedly pursue the shitty parts of town.
Change comes.
It's easy to forget how warm it was,
when you drag a cardigan like an old cat
from the back of your wardrobe.
It's a closed door now,
slammed straight into the face of an open one.