Only when the magic
Leaves us,
Wide-eyed and withered,
Shells of nothing new,
Down-blown and resting
In a cornfield,
Do we comprehend
Harvest. Only when
The clay is drying,
Like the charcoal husk
Of Shelley’s heart
Wrapped in paper
In a desk drawer. Closer,
She croons, whose
Rose-lips can
Conjure moons.
Repurposed, soon—
Like Wagner’s sticks,
All angles and twine,
And turning a Foucault line
In crisp autumn wind,
Telling stories from a
Branch; watching all those
Dropping things;
Lamenting red
Or golding;
Blood-orange;
Now umber;
Like a scolding;
Coursing, still, with veins,
They speak thinner words,
Thread-bare as summer’s coat;
Spider web, quivering
Where sleeves used to be;
A spectral face;
A nettled bit of widow
Lace, moans like a haunting,
Clinging to a gouged
And rotting gourd.

– (c)2017 by Mick A. Quinn

(Art by TBD)