August Lethargic

by Ally Aardsma

I should pick up a pen

but my will is even weaker

than my forearm flexors.

Just pretend to make eye contact

so they can’t tell that my

auditory cortex isn’t here right now.

Image credit: Earl Wilcox on Unsplash

I should go on a walk.

Sunlight hours will soon abandon

us for the other hemisphere.

I think the bread is moldy again.

Poor peaches, bruised by neglect,

growing new life for company.

I’m probably dehydrated.

Hopefully they’ll believe me

when I say it’s the ragweed pollen.

I’m just Type B.

I’ll wash the gingham blanket

and the stained white dress soon.

I should have set an alarm.

The impending autumn swallowed

the afternoon in my absence.

I must be out of salt

or my weak immune system

has welcomed another virus visitor.

At least the sunflower skeletons

keep me company.

   I haven’t written a poem in a long time.

***

Ally Aardsma

Ally Aardsma (she/her) is an English major and Spanish minor at Lipscomb University in Nashville, TN. Ally was a featured reader at Lipscomb’s music and arts festival, Wild Bison, and will present creative prose and linguistic research at the Sigma Tau Delta and Popular Culture Association national conferences in the spring of 2026. When she’s not writing poems, she loves crocheting her own clothes, learning languages, and reading fiction.