Home

Autumn has creased the edges of trees since the last time I looked.
Like the paper of an old letter forgotten inside a book,
carried from place to place. Needlessly.

I leaned on the balcony railing to watch the city sprawling underneath;
streetlamps blinking sleepily into dusk like dusty hurricane lamps
hanging haphazardly over abandoned porches,
swayed by the winds, this way and that.

Soon the last of the dancing leaves will part,
and the air stiffen with cold and silence.

I may dream of home;
hot soup bubbling on the stove,
the smell of thyme and onion and melting candle wax,
old dog lying in front of the fireplace,
wet pine logs sizzling,
my grandma calling me to supper;
cutting wedges from the black, round bread
she had baked at dawn,
scratching frost from the kitchen window
with her fingers or
with the blunt side of a kitchen knife,
blowing gently into the mouth of an old-fashioned stove
stacked neatly with old newspapers and dry wood shavings.