Fall

The sound of the rake against

the pavement moves me to the window.

I examine the crooked bones,

follow them down

to forgotten flesh, which builds below.

The remaining flesh slowly forgets how to ache,

what colors are, how to access memory.

I’m attending a memorial service –

bags line our streets like lies

to be taken away by familiar strangers. I could make a song out of you.

We decompose; sentences disintegrate into silent earth, fall under snow –

oceans we find inside ourselves daily

wash away; too much of a tide pulls

the curtain across inside-eyes.

We no longer see in speech

the way we had conceived.