Edge of the First Frost

The day thins out to parchment by the lane,

A milky sun hangs low, without much gain.

The air has teeth that test my naked throat.

A quiet bite beneath my wool-wrapped coat.

~~

Leaves huddle damp along the gutter’s seam,

Soft leather, bruised, half-melted from their gleam.

They smell of earth and apple cores gone brown.

Of bonfires cooling on the edge of town.

~~

A distant bus sighs brakes in cloudy rings,

Its doors exhale the heat of crowded things.

That warmth drifts past, a bittersweet perfume.

Of wet wool, metal poles, and a crowded room.

~~

I taste old rain and something newly clear.

A mineral chill that sharpens every fear.

The sky turns pewter, slick as river stone.

Streetlamps ignite like seeds of borrowed bone.

~~

A puddle skins itself in fragile glass.

It crackles softly when my footsteps pass.

The grass turns stiff, each blade a rigid wire.

Holding the memory of a late-day fire.

~~

Somewhere, a gate clicks twice and won’t quite close.

A lone bike wheel ticks slowly as it froze.

The world draws in its colors, dim, precise,

Balancing, breath held, on the lip of ice.