crackled

they turn (the leaves they do),
from a young green
to a bristly orange or dried brown
colors that come quick
to some even when small,

the cold sucking every cell
(tumbling, twisting, down
on the lawn of the house
where one child used another),
the dark commanding full attention,
draining life with pleasure -
autumn turns to winter.

they turn they do,
from a young green to a bristly
orange or dried brown, floating
before landing far from the root,
a crackled shell.

presumed kept

never fall in love outside your class,
especially if you're both the same sex,
because at the dinner parties, when they
ask what it is that you're doing in life
and you say, "I'm a waiter - I mean writer,"
they'll look at you with peculiar eyes,
because the answer to that same question
given by the one you love is, "Chemist,
Ph.D. ," [received nineteen eighty-nine],
and this will turn the talk away from you,
and you'll wonder why you're even there,
writing poems that will never hit the page
while jamming your hand deep in your pocket
searching for your key to open the wine.

^

Biography

I am a freelance writer, waiter, and poet living in Boston, MA. My poetry has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Boston Poet, and The Isle Review (www.islereview.com), an online literary journal that I currently edit.