Overread at Table 2: from "Leaves of Autumn"

Leaves of Autumn

These were the days after the hurricane.

Summer left, limping, with a broken wing.

We swept what was left of the water from the concrete porch

into the grass, to wend its way through the smooth stones

into the French drain,

                and disappear eventually, to the front of the house.

Every night, around dusk,

                we walk together, barefoot, toward the mailbox

                halfway down the block.

Hand in hand (most days), we

walk in silence,

                breathing in the late afternoon;

it is as if, those days, we measure the movement of the

summer heat.  Our lungs are the daily barometer, the heaviness of

                the humid Houston air.

With the advent of September, and the eventual creeping earlier

                of dusk, the sun leaves us a few seconds, earlier each day,

                we pull the mail from the box:  

                People en Español, Cinco Hill Review, the assorted

                varieties of medical bills,

we are what was left when August no longer was.

MR

2017-0906