of the Japanese maple have fallen; 

you rake the last of them into the drain.

The garden is full of you; snails 

leave a glistening trail like the slick

feel of your head when it crowned,

the wind separates clumped grass

into smooth strands the way I braid

your hair. Sometimes stones lie

in the yard; you throw them over the fence

and the old woman next door

thinks they rain from heaven

like ruined manna, because

her daughter clung to her nipple

and she remembers only of the sting of it.

Autumn stretches pitiless limbs.

I watch you from my room

and the tall shadow you throw on the fence.

My arms want to circle the garden

with you in it, so that when spring

comes you will still be beside the ivy.

I could sprout again, and grow ripe

while you curl in the bud of a rose,

while you tuck into a snail’s shell,

sleeping.