Tuesday, November 22, 2022

poem

 Shelf Life

I feel bad for the autumn leaves that hang

Around too long, clinging to thin limbs

As the calendar flips to November

Desiccated like the cracked leather glove

Nailed to a wall in a closet 

In Chirico's Song of Love


Some of these shriveled leaves never fall at all

Cradled high up within witch’s claw branches 

Spend the winter clustered in browned banana bunches

Buffeted to a feeble chattering by paint stripping winds


It's a error to mistake this resistance to gravity

For a form of relative immortality

They know themselves they should have let go 

They know themselves the wind was a chariot


All that’s left is a wistful nostalgia for the glossy 

Foreign currency orange flourish

Of early October, glowing with colors

Before ever knowing they had once been green


Exultant from all the attention of

Everyone suddenly interested 

Taking pictures, pointing up at them in the sky—

Fluttering against the deep blue sky 

Feeling beautiful and worthy and whole

Without ever wondering why 


11/22/22

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