Last Days Last Days
We've not exactly crossed the seasons' threshold,
barred the door;
there are still days of warmth left,
clinging --
like withered leaves --
to the branches of autumn.
The sky has faded, though,
no longer infused with the hot purity
that summer brings,
now a faded denim drop-cloth tossed carelessly across the heavens.
And this pale sun,
this pale sky,
bring cold, the chill of an ocean's pitiless depths,
the surcease of comfort found on a still and ashy hearth.
Here, naked flesh is golden with summer, pimpled with frost,
and color slowly leaches away from this forsaken, desolate land.


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