August comes in a linen shirt.
He’s all sun swollen days and 
stretching on the floor,
slow walks in the early evening heat, 
sleeping without any blankets.

In the park, curls on my chest, August
reminds me to stay cool, even as he dogs 
my mind the way steam fogs a mirror;
real slow like, but also all at once.

Old men on the internet say August
is beautiful, that they want to come
on his face. He shudders and balks 
at their immaculate harshness.

After dinner August smiles at the golden
light reflected on the silver back of
a stop sign. Look at that, he urges my
eyes, his gentle fingers guide my chin.

August’s eyebrows grow closer together,
threaten to touch. He drinks wine straight 
from the bottle while sitting on the floor. 
He is lovingly housed in all my mirrors.

August crawls quietly into my bed,
his toes touch the tops of mine. 
he wears my sweater and a small hole
reveals a disk of alabaster skin.

August pauses for a moment to check 
his reflection in the bay window of someone’s
house, perhaps imagines a living room, and
then inhales his tired self. 
August startles at a silky dog’s bark.

Eamon Dunn is a senior English major at the University of Vermont where his work won the Marion Berry Albee Award for Excellence in Composition, and he was the Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Vermont Cynic, UVM’s student newspaper. His journalism has been published in Vermont Public and Vermont Magazine, and his creative work has been featured in The Gist.