Jane Zwart

The Circus of Sons and of August

Everyone’s grown leggy, impatiens
and sons. Also restive: sons
and an imp who shaves daylight
from time, the vanguards
of bluejay nagging oaks to mast.

Call it August, but October
is rushing the year’s eighth berth;
it’s tagging leaves red:
same old vandal, same aerosol.
Call it the circus of sons. 

They’re pissed on summer’s dregs,
marauders sucking the melt
from freezies’ sheaths like marrow,
as if August were the end
of sweetness or the beginning of time.

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Jane Zwart teaches at Calvin University and co-edits book reviews for Plume. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, Threepenny Review and The Nation. Her first collection, Oddest & Oldest & Saddest & Best, came out with Orison Books in February 2026.