Early Frost

You weren’t supposed to come this early.

Yesterday my bare arms sipped lightly on the sunshine.

Had I known, I would have drunk deeply

and with more gratitude.

Now my skin goosebumps and shivers with feral fear.

I liberate a woolen sweater from its cedar casket,

and thus armored,

venture out to meet you.

We've met before, of course.

You the sparkling aperitif

for full-figured snowfall,

your shining scales draping the surface of things,

mysterious as manna

crisp as papadum

delicate as filo

bland as Communion wafers

dissolving on the tongue.

Browning grass and crumbs of leaves

poke up through every footprint.

You came early this year,

like a bride emerging prematurely,

fluttering her veil with a tease.

.

I crunch to the side garden

and puff in sharp dismay.

You had been here first.

Yesterday's cherry tomatoes,

blushing and swollen with promise,

now hang limp among the withered leaves.

I cradle one. The sphere rolls wrongly in my palm,

obscenely gelatinous,

like skin pulled tight over pus.

Sunlight glares

over your ruinous wake:

Red peppers sagging like weary balloons

Spinach leaves melting into mush

Lettuce translucent with shock.

Rows of arrested ripeness

food now for worms

and my regret.

I was not prepared for you,

for the pale shroud of your indifference

to the feast left on your shrine.

.

Will I be prepared

when my shroud comes,

early or late?

What will be left on my table

after it is draped in light?

What will I become

beneath the veil?