My body is in October. 

It’s autumn inside; 

things are drying up and wrinkling 

but there are vibrant, ripe parts 

waiting for frost. 

The mood is grim and salacious 

and funny all at once. 

It’s a time to watch little ones hoard 

while I let go tethers holding me to ground. 

There’s nothing new but 

there are endless ways 

to see colors of the world 

and rejoice in its patterns 

as it falls apart. I feel a kinship with fall.

The painting didn’t feature a horse’s ass 

but it was draped beside the angels 

like a coat shed in the desert heat 

and the only thing hanging in the air 

was a wrong kind of holiness with dingy 

wings and shrill instruments. 

Looking again, the ass may be a high heel 

and my bifocals have betrayed me 

in a most amusing way.

We’re not stone or tree 

but all the terrible things 

we do to each other 

remain part of us, 

rings of fire inside. 

Laughing at time, 

weeping over loss, 

we never hold either. 

We try to smother 

our history by pressing 

closely to others, 

leaving us a patchwork 

of etchings.

I wonder if every crack in the pavement 

has a purpose 

or if accidents are made divine 

afterwards, 

like Van Gogh’s potato eater’s chin 

or the trail of a jet across a blue sky? 

A woman saw Jesus in toast, 

one thought Buddha conducted the river 

like Mickey Mouse in Fantasia. 

I don’t deny a former craving for answers 

but confess 

now I prefer how things fall together 

or apart 

in ways that look nice from a distance 

real or imagined.