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As Autumn Approaches We Walk and Speak to Our Feet

Because the ground set itself on fire, we walked about the common through tidal pools of spewing water and we spread candor as brushstrokes across the first thunderings of Autumn.

We spoke in tones as bleak as the asphalt, watched the crowds ebb and flow across a bridge that is not our bridge, but the bridge of the city’s dementia.

How we forget the ways in which our faces were touched, the way hands folded and unfolded under our chins. Parallel lines sprung from the voice shouting from these dimly lit sidestreets, we were both together and apart

from a world intruded upon, ransacked and left alone amongst the bustle of invaders and the fleeing of the flagstones.

What, then, are we but shadows of past mistakes? our tails extending past the evening, beyond the fading memory of who we once were.

And, again, we remain walking, moving and never speaking outside of our hurried speech. To race our tongues against daylight as the days stunt and sputter.

In Preparation for Apple Picking

To hear only my voice under the breadth of clouds at once inside and overcome.

In planting flowers she waited, longed, crept beneath branches folding upon her hands and arms and eyes.

Without such sympathy, there is no way to know the fruit of the apple from the apple itself.

Before eating, be still and ready.

Grass begins to die as soon as your foot hits the ground.

Tractors mill loamy dirt, seed and ash.

Before eating, be greedy.

Under the skin is where it really is.

She told someone her secrets, walked as if in love.

Worms walk like ants.

No way to follow the sight of the sound of nothing as it dangles.

Before eating be humble.

Before ice a memory of how you felt and how you remained.

Because I cannot let go.

Before eating be almost still with greed– almost alive, almost dead in compost so clear you can see the heavens and hells.

Six Years

It was discovered in tinfoil and lace: the way
your hands would softly knead dough, clumsy
gently across a kitchen counter

I once called “mine”.

And you, ghost, who follows
room to room, asks in wisps of smoke
from the stovetop

if I will ever feel “better”. This is distraction.

Your nose turns up as the timer reaches “ready”
and it is but a sound that escapes your mouth
but never reaches my ear. We were decades of footsteps,
a cold draft from the window you refused to repair.

In Autumn we exchanged letters. They sit at the font of my intention.