October

Although a tide turns in the trees the moon doesn't turn the leaves, though chimneys smoke and blue concedes to bluer home-time dark. Though restless leaves submerge the park in yellow shallows, ankle-deep, and through each tree the moon shows, halved or quartered or complete, the moon's no fruit and has no seed, and turns no tide of leaves on paths that still persist but do not lead where they did before dark. Although the moonstruck pond stares hard the moon looks elsewhere. Manholes breathe. Each mind's a different, distant world this same moon will not leave.