Brown leaves drift down like birds,
land on the creek, float away.

Turtles, like hard brown leaves,
drift above the creek floor.

Yellow leaves dazzle,
sunlight on a cloudy day.

In the clearing, mosquitos rise.
Last bees browse on goldenrod

that floods the field.

A tree stoops to take a drink
from the dry pond.

Mushrooms spring up on fallen trees—
were they always there?
                        

Having woken at dusk, the woman
sips iced coffee with flax milk,
watching today’s harsh light draining
from the cloudless sky.  Its blues
gentle to indigo-pink.  Shadows turn
to cool compresses, ice long melted.
A fan stirs the over-conditioned air.

She quickly dresses to go out
to the wake for summer days
when she rose at dawn, played
in fields of matted grass and 
splashed in copper colored brooks
while older girls in bikinis lay
in the sun and Beatles sang.  
She never was one of them.  

She wears a white cloak, hood
tightly covering her bare, pink scalp.
Sweeping out to the cooling sidewalk,
she thinks—this is my world
now—grass gone to sand, streets
painted white, no birds or bugs above,
only humming from driverless cars.

Some dream of moving to Buffalo,
the breeze floating in from Lake
Ontario, snow drifting in come December.
She refuses.  She lives here.

In this dream, I walk north
without subways to save
me.  Cobblestones stretch out
to island’s blasted end.
Fifth Avenue swallows 
up all sidewalks, all grass,
all trees.  Ash falls like snow.
Stones crack and crumble.  Zinc
white buildings hug the edge.
Chalk men in doorways wait
to cross the streets on this
burnt-out star where we live.
I step on jagged cracks 
and ground glass, dodging cars 
until I wake, reach Inwood, 
or die.  I no longer
believe in anyplace
to rest: churches, cafes,
parks that resisted this
once-pitiless fire now 
flickered out.