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These days weather
changes overnight.
Smoke filters sunlight;

embers burn all
the more brightly
for the silenced

desire. Yellow
maple sky, old
cracked oak

carpet over grass
that hasn’t even
yet been born.

Dewed frost gilds
homecoming
mornings,

words like
“hunker”
sprouting in

untried accents,
“distrust” burying
its lips in glowing

ash. A hand
can be a hard
thing to hold

in such climes;
fingers all too
easily balled in

anger. Memory
just won’t burn
as quickly as leaf-fall

and faithlessness
doesn’t pass
with the dew.