Fall

It is the most patient of seasons.

Nothing sweats you dead.

Nothing lingers yet nothing endures.

It is sitting on apartment stoops,

smoking cigarettes and drinking warm rum.

It is waiting,

to see if she'll meet you at the café,

and take your hand as you go inside.

It is the season of cities,

when all of the earth turns as forlorn as old cobblestones

in ancient streets.

It is the forgiveness of loss,

the last games of ball in the street

before our mothers call us in.

It is your pack sagging on your shoulders after a long ride,

it is the warm lights of homes that will never be yours.

Everything is remembered now,

the ghosts of the old year,

the respect of the dead,

the visiting of the last haunts before closing and hunkering down.

It is the turning of lights and bed clothes.

It is for the waiting of last days.

It is for the lighting of candles and for the old ones to appear.

It is the gathering in of summer and all hot things.

It is the time for the gathering in of the heart.

It is the splitting of time

and to tell stories of ancestors.

It is the splitting of the Self

between whom you have been

and what you might become,

it is time for red-head girls to wear as much out

as they do in,

and it is time to wonder what they are hiding.

It is time to sit and tell sad stories of the death of love.

It is time to sit with her,

mascara running,

hoping that she will stay with you.

It is the preparation time for the piercing cold,

to propagate and prostletyze against the coming warmth.

It is the time to be content with staying still

and to remember your travels before you sleep.

It is the remembrance of Spring

and what it did to you.

Oh, to live a thousand autumns and never call it a Fall,

for what I have collected now

will sustain me through a million summers.