This Fall
Sunday, and six feet above us
whirl prayers
to a tatter in ceiling-fanned air
while this book of days
in our laps falls
open and apart, our cross
country atlas consulted
to scraps, whose lines we learn
by rote; past windows
leaves peeling
with the curl and burn
of this calendar year
tear away
in their various colors, like cars.
They go like days, and I savor
His desertings
like aftertaste. O scrapbook
His patterns of departure, pray
to a dial tone sky.
My weathervane, turn
to remain. Only
I who now take
this wilder weather for atlas,
now take November’s advice
to undress: to walk out
into ardor, arms
in Y, the first yes—
to every element:
stripped to my brown,
umbrellaless.
Sunday, and six feet above us
whirl prayers
to a tatter in ceiling-fanned air
while this book of days
in our laps falls
open and apart, our cross
country atlas consulted
to scraps, whose lines we learn
by rote; past windows
leaves peeling
with the curl and burn
of this calendar year
tear away
in their various colors, like cars.
They go like days, and I savor
His desertings
like aftertaste. O scrapbook
His patterns of departure, pray
to a dial tone sky.
My weathervane, turn
to remain. Only
I who now take
this wilder weather for atlas,
now take November’s advice
to undress: to walk out
into ardor, arms
in Y, the first yes—
to every element:
stripped to my brown,
umbrellaless.