September's End

                    After "Maypole", by Lucia Perillo

Clear-eyed skies, cider smiles, calico leaves

crunch underfoot. All perfect, save the quilt 

of black-eyed Susans— a disheveled bed, 

gold crowns browned, stalks kneeling as if to pray.

Yet— if the bed is a constellation, 

and Fall its telescope, the faded blooms 

are lonesome stars in need of a cricket’s 

song. Perhaps the bed is a leaky boat, 

and the Susans are its crew, yearning for

the safety of shore. Or say the bed is

a fresh grave, the brittle stems all bones of 

the dead, not yet willing to be buried. 

As we are not yet ready for shrouded 

skies, ebbing light, and Winter’s lonely wait.  

Published in Capsule Stories, Autumn 2022