With fall comes death in the form of brown leaves loving the wind for a final time.
These pastoral mornings built of red and orange diorama sidewalks, and bright black reflecting puddles of clogged storm drains gurgling at passersby.
Afternoons of walking hand in hand, the only oven to keep fingers warm.
These are the early nights of rainy applause, hissing, and static combing through the tangled marigold stalks as we sweep gardens under the rug.
These are evenings of piling apple cores and nectarine pits. Building false castles of hazelnut shells while the pickling liquid steams it’s garlic adventures to the tune of popping tin seals.
That’s nights final breath of fresh summer sealed away, for another season.
Fairness Peck, a poet living in Seattle WA, holds a BA in literature and poetry from Western Washington University and an MA in communications from the University of Washington. Today he works as a content strategist and his work has been recently published in The Racket Journal, Red Noise Collective, The Rising Phoenix Review, Griffel and has a chapbook forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.
