This is a Letter

This is a letter to the worm-threaded earth. This is a letter to November, its gray bowl of sky riven by black-branched trees. A letter to split-tomato skins, overripe apples, & a flock of fruit flies lifting from the blueing clementines’ wood crate. To the broken confetti of late fall leaves. This is a letter to rosemary. This is a letter to the floor’s sink & creak, the bedroom door’s torn hinge moaning its good-night. This is to the unshaven cheek. To cedar, mothballs, camphor, & last winter’s unwashed wool. This is a letter to the rediscovered, to mulch, pine needles, the moon, frost, flats of pansies, the backyard, hunger, night, the unseen. This is a letter to soil, thrumming as it waits to be turned. This is a letter to compost, eggshell’s bone-ash chips, fruit rinds curved like fingernails, & stale chunks of bread. A letter to the intimate dark—mouth-warm & damp as a bed. This is a letter to the planet’s scavenging lips.