It took the leaves so long to turn that one of the chickens started laying. She’s a natural: makes her deposit every morning warm orb the color of my hand. It took the leaves so long to turn but then again I haven’t been here for October in a while. What do we geographically polyamorous drifters know about the arrival of cold autumn nights. One of the chickens started laying and the mums are dead not all the mums just the ones that got abandoned on our porch their dried-out corpses escaping their thin home depot shells and rolling across our lawn awaiting the dignity of the compost heap. I haven't been here in October in a while but mostly all I do is wipe the bar tables at 3pm cut lemons rearrange the seasonal signposts fake limbs, decorative cobwebs turn off the lights turn on the lightning effect open cocktail umbrellas to garage rock til early morning October, the medicaid helpline whose number I have memorized nice ladies who can’t verify my identity but they can transfer me to another line I count my refills check my bank account check the mail two notices about the open enrollment deadline any questions, please call October your oven’s been on for weeks now cookies every evening thin ones and fat ones white chocolate, coconut so many cookies we forget to eat toast three quarter loaf of moldy bread in the compost squirrels parade the back yard entire slices hanging from their greedy mouths, put flour on the grocery list again October maybe it’s true that the leaves took forever to turn colors dulled from heat, rainfall, uneven ambient apocalypse. But look at this sugar maple outside our front window burning. Can you really hold a thought in your mind with that color filling your eyes?
My favorite lines:
“take some scrap of the day
put it under tape
don’t worry what it’s amounting to.”
It also prompted me to go back and listen to the poem you read (which I haven’t heard before). Thank you for sharing both, yours and his. 🧡
Hold up. Do you two know each other?
Miss you, dude.