Edinburgh Summer by Norman Bissett

Title: Edinburgh Summer
Author: Norman Bissett
Number: 14/100
Allocated postcode: EH1

Edinburgh Summer

Summer is over
even before it began,
with May eliding

into October.
It’s a sign of retrenchment—
the three-season year.

Spring and then summer
were grim seasons of monsoons,
of drowned daffodils,

waterlogged tulips,
refrigerated snowdrops,
wind-tossed crocuses.

Cornfields lie flattened,
dank as the Sargasso Sea
as cabbages rot

and black Edzell Blues
turn their eyes up to heaven,
supplicating sun.

On the Esplanade,
the Military Tattoo.
moon-struck, waxed tidal.

The only busker
with his head above water
was the guy on stilts.