The stars are one-hundred vacant airplanes,

their skin is illuminated in white.

Outside, the blood of Pennsylvanian air

turns November because it wants to.

The corky sides of trees

are shredded with cold

so that the ants may lodge themselves

beneath an afghan of nearly

72 days of summer.

When the leaves outnumber the blue

badge of grass,

you know that you've lost

the stems of your nerves;

your neck will no longer bleed red

with sunburn,

but you smell the burning actions

of a squirrel's nest above you,

and your feet will no longer feel soft

like apples,

but will fall in love with themselves;

grow numb;

they will hope for the sweaty mouths

of ice-skates.

Your legs will sink,

but not into the sand along the seaside,

whose dusty breath is the breath of

ferris wheels and spaceships

who rise and fall on hydraulic arms

and shoulders.

They will sink and make hissing sounds

into the snow;

they will want to be buried deep in numb;

buried with the pain of

raw sounds:

a flock of pianocolored geese

calling down the playchildren,

you, invernal arboles,

brightening with the white sky.

There is a skylight here,

above the crowns of poplars,

the miters of sighing birches.

The formation of sparrows

flying point and counterpoint

move like cursors

or verb phrases;

the sense the spending

of autumn

and write it across the sky,

torn with birds and airplanes,

torn by the invisible wind:

it disrobes the tress,

it ices the streets down

like frozen planks of

turquoise formica,

it makes our skin fall

from the warm scaffold

of sol.

>From the arteries of

forests of trees

that grow and disease

inside of us,

their creamy leaves

collected heavy into

the balls of our feet.

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