Insurrection
Nov 7 2008


Leaves fall
carpet-bombing faded lawns
so they bleed bright red.
With old wounds,
clots of brown and yellow.

A pincer movement
of dusk and dawn
squeezes daylight into no-man’s land,
until retreat’s impossible.

An artillery barrage of rain
hammers
the cheap plastic awning.
Until ditches overflow,
like trenches turning to mud.

The sky is grey
almost low enough to touch,
like the smoke of a thousand guns.

And the first day the world is buried in snow
the white flag of fall is raised
— the season
surrendering to winter.