Ye olde golden bones of autumn
you dapple the streets with your crinkle-cut cellulose
your toes are dipped in the Marilyn white of winter
stepchild of summer, blind-dropper, clock-reverser
harvest the light found unbecoming of shade
Eggs are not born to die and be eaten in autumn
you, who made love with me those cold Central Florida nights at your mother’s
you, who I ate, your hardboiled egg-breasts, creamy and eighteen
dudded-out cotton bodysuit stud that snapped above your pud
dry-eyed and bleary-teary over you come spring
take that summer!
Snakes raise November, and the stakes are raised on your rage, autumn
you, bunker rats and street whores, introduced like a bullet through a window
your trees remembered how to apply lipstick to the green pig of summer
pumpkin dumplings and awkward kisses with the sky
Daniel Plainview drinks my milkshake, but I drinks the tease of autumn
Working like a boxer you do, autumn, and I cry for you
you’ve jumped off my lap, an orange cat of trailing, waning sunlight
you could suckle in a pickle, hinting, doubting, then bolting past the solstice
hitting, hitting, then dodging your cold wind of fancy footwork
horse and buggy of trees moving off like walking cornstalks
into the sunset
