The House of Flora

   Along a speckled and crystalline Richland Avenue, I feel the softer spaces of my skin sinking into the ridged holes of a worn-in street bed. I observe the bell tower-clamoring high, proclaiming its promises in the clear throat of a crisp, October sky. There are canopies here, of amber and of rouge, of umber and of emerald. Light peaks through their negative spaces; it explores and observes the crevices and veins of shed foliage.

The stark trees already dread the winter-
Where they,
Like bare children,
Will wait in anticipation

For their May headdresses-
With only whistling winter songs to sing,
And nowhere else to go.