autumnal to pieces

orange sweaters parade up morrison, munching their way toward the construction party.

moving van tows a sedan, front wheels lifted, while a giant, dark chocolate teddy bear reclines behind the wheel.

sunk too deep in his armchair, an older man, cloud singed and mistaken for sane, cackles alone.

outside and just below, a couple abruptly departs, clicking off the autumn show.

leather strap skinny, woman with a face creased like the oldest jacket you always wear, emerges from the pterodactyl wing of this pickup truck morning, barely filling her rancher's clothes. 

young woman sweatered in collegiate devotion deposits her Chihuahua in between the sidewalk tables as she stops inside for her morning coffee while her dog anxiously waits, leashed but untied, ears erect, head swiveling each way for sympathy. watching from behind the cool glass, i feel like an accomplice to this tiniest of trembling.

an unseen man sits at the furthest table, pushes with the tip of an index finger the plastic black ashtray  across the silver table's surface toward another unseen man, dressed in dark, his obscene need for nicotine grimaces him as he frisks the street with desperate dark eyes, risking publicity, it is probably too dark inside him to see any of this spectacular color, too dark to see anything but tunnel, brisk fingers scurry inside that dirty yawn for some needed, half-swallowed thing. he is shadow's squirrel stealing neglected last drags. i don't recall when he arrived or from where, my eyes couldn't hack his encrypted presence, and so back under covers he crept, unseen again. 

pasted on the back of the stopped bus, a mash of messages keeps my head up: can you have faith in your heart? 

leaping in the leaf stream, in the least little swirl.

alone like him, my healing routines fail to carry me toward love, and like him, i am a fish compelled by need to become amphibious, and thus, doubly exposed. 

long time taken 
as if you could 
measure that with 
a million year ruler 
such a long time taken
to escape the murderous.

sun parked in a white box across the street 
thirsty for color, wind swipes the dainty scarves
dangling from the young, now half-dressed tree.

you were never
invincible, 
just lucky.