August smells like sunscreen and ripe peaches, skin stained like regret: indigo rose, all the daisy chains we never made, friendship bracelets we forgot to bead and braid. August is nobody’s girl, volcanic heart, liminal sword of light where two curtains meet. Already she swims in grey tulle rolling in from September like coastal Maine fog. The silver lining: the mosquitos are migrating mudward for winter. We are past July. We are no longer drowning in the deep end of humidity. I am no longer a child. The maples shuffle the cards and cut the deck; lay August, like a wet sheet, out to dry.