Crows zig past a scold of clouds.
Winds come and go in frantic bursts.
Trees hasten toward the ground,
then pleat the sky. All November
in its gray layers, humbling our hopes.

Electric light early in the day
as if day never fully expands.
Such brown left from last week’s frost,
dull, lacking vibrance.
Heartaches thrive in this late month.

The losses that had burrowed down
now return, slowly unfolding and opening
their sad eyes. You’re a little sorry
you let them go below to be choked by roots.
You’re a little guilty and so you allow them

Entrance once again to your dim house,
to sit in the red chair by the window and look
longingly at the flustered branches,
and occasionally, to look at you. You wish
you could cry and show them how much you miss them.
You wish you could wail and tear your hair.
But you can only return their look,
unflinching, and give what remains.

Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 17, Issue 4.

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The paper-skin woman
was begging at the corner,
or was she asking? Perhaps
it was as simple as hope.
How many in the cars grinding past
were hungry?

Ruin had come by earlier
wearing a party dress. She said
she was giving up the ghost, but
the paper-skin woman wasn’t interested
in ghosts. Or the invisible. Or facsimiles.
The paper-skin woman had come to believe
the only thing worth saving was an anxious truth
and she knew how it carried itself
and the timbre of its voice
and how it could look pretty in the pink light of dusk.

Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 16, Issue 4.