Summer is fading and the Eastern
Hognose glides across the trail on
his way to the evaporating pond for
a refreshing swim. Will fall rains tickle
the open, gaped mouth pond or quench
its thirst till it overflows and rises
along the scorched, cracked earth
seeping into crevasses and down to
where chipmunks have burrowed?
He assumes so but doesn’t know
as he watches a drop fall, land on a
rock near the pond and vanish without
a trace, not even a fading wet spot.