Equinox

It’s getting colder and harder to wake.

the trees release their leaves and the neighbor’s

chimes clang across the street when I find

the dead blue jay on the walk to my car.

.

His body is immaculate, chest soft

and downy white, body a vibrant cobalt

shriek, eyes shut like he’s savoring a dream.

I almost expect his wings to move, his claw

to twitch: that black bead of an eye will open

and communicate to me all that I missed,

all that happened while I was asleep—

as if I don’t already know.

Life either went on, or it didn’t: Amen.

.

This time of year, the air is woodsmoke and

grief and my hands are numb when I go out to

smoke, seizing up around the shape of my sorrow,

the sudden, immediate longing for warmth.

.

Remembering grows sharper,

brings edges: the way you laughed, the soft

light that shone by your bed, pushing golden light

into the darkened hall as you turned

to the first or last page of your book, paper rustling

like kindling pining for flame.

.

I watch the thrushes jump in the high grass,

grapple for purchase on the skin of the roof.

I think birds have the right idea, by going south

for the winter.

.

In my dreams tonight,

I will cross the lawn spiked with frost

and put my hand on the wheel;

I will look at the sun, a flat yellow tab on the horizon

and I will drive away.