Missing the Fall

Autumn chilled stealthily.
He thought he'd wasted it,
hunched immobile
stiff skull planted.

The bluewhite flickered at ninety hertz.
He blinked once a minute

to the click and rattle
and a little hint of sky through the corner window
which skipped and flickered
from night through to night through.
He typed and twitched,
twisted stretched and massaged the
syndromatic aches
and spotted the dot
spiraling through the corner sky
buffeted with a thwap
splayed red flat on the glass;
a leaf.
Maple.

Where the hell did that come from?

The fall tripped him in mid-stumble;
and as he crunched and strolled,
gamboled and frolicked,
his cold breath sketched his thanks.

Nov. '99

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