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Sally O'Quinn
October View
Smooth and silver as polished steel, the sky
arches above curling blades of grass, a crowd
of standing trees whose limbs molt brittle feathers
in wind dry as a cough.
This is my view on the morning after you've gone,
after your revelation tore my reality
like strips of muslin used
to bind a soldier's wounds.
How can I be nonplussed
while my heart leaks like a cracked teacup
and your scent still permeates
my linens?
A gallery of blackbirds screech from the naked trees,
heads swiveling, beaks clattering as they joust
for a prized perch.
Acorns they scavenge will never make a tree,
will never shade
afternoon lovers as they woo.
They will be ground and digested
in a pariah's gut, only coming to earth
as a cursed stain on
some derelict sidewalk.
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