October

Summer slips out the screen door

While revelers

Gossip like a pack of coyotes

The sea lies blanketed in silver scales

As the first leaf gasps and falls to the ground.

Suspended from a fraying rope

Sipping champagne

Quoting Thoreau

I am

Faintly aware I have forgotten

Something

Your phone number

Or a promise

The breeze off the desert

Smells even more like rain but

It seems the heat will never end

I traveled a long way to get here

And I wonder if I will ever be able to return

Knowing what I know now

The way that seemed so easy

Is now suddenly hard

The load cuts into

My shoulders.

A crescent moon

Lingers before it

Drops below the jagged

Ridge of mountains
Naked.