The Close of October
Every year, trees redeem their leaves,
the sky slung to our neighbor’s stones.
Finches are bewildered by wind, reiterating
each feathered plummet.
Echinacea musk and rosemary
alter the drifting smoke of piñon—autumn already
decomposing, each blade
of cactus standing.
Winter’s measure:
thin wires inked with articulate crows.
The ground is almost the horizon,
pouring out its oscillations.
A room of gray sweaters. Blueberries
up from the freezer.
Lauren Camp served as the second New Mexico Poet Laureate. Read more. She is the author of eight books of poetry, including One Hundred Hungers (Tupelo Press, 2016). Read more.
First published in Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Vol 3, 2016