Autumn in Absentia

When Fall is just a silhouette, no realer than a fable

the air no longer a keeper

And chimneys shy away from amber snowflakes

And the ghost of cinnamon lingers

through every street

I have never walked.

Stubborn the leaves

That stay olive, refusing to rust

As if the year cannot bear

One more ending.

As if red and blue

Can never mix.

Tragic the sky that

Folds into its usual grey

The heat, patient and heavy, blinks

Waiting for nothing to change.

I think about autumn often

The cities that let go

The yellowing of the street lights

In the evenings of jazz and gloom

But here the days stay loud

And the season I imagine

Lives only in the space

Between my longing

And this city that never learns to fall.