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Not an Ode to Fall
Potato chips with orange food-coloring
leave their crumbs inside a page fallen
from a tree that fell on copper verdigris.
In the dying light of auld lang sein,
love yearns for dry rot in its veins
leaving in its stead a chance to rest.
The paint chips left by sore
attention fell through the cracks
in the dirt under the linoleum floor.
They would have melted into ice
if it were summer in the arctic
with icicles too dull for threshing.
But now they fill the holes in
conversations on drooping porches
looking toward the drowsing barn.
The cows agree with holy orders
of concupiscence allowed by hay
in the box where they chew the fat.
Theirs was a camaraderie so overly
picturesque even Constable would have
painted it though not an outdoor sport.
The swains and wagonners were out
looking for love among the trees
and puddles and bedraggled sheep.
Back in the barn, smiling pumpkins
provided every sort of consolation
for any absent keys in the natural music.
A potential symphony of gobblers,
for instance, sat silently beside
the shining plates on kitchen tables.
There’s nothing like gobble-de-gook
to dispel the drone that tempera
removes with too much orange.
A death’s head on a post, however,
will do for orange what an ode on
autumn will do for mince. Praise him.
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