NA

I like to think I smile more when autumn comes

I caught myself grinning out the window

Trees back home don’t look like that, so full

A tree skirt has a Christmas connotation

But the middle of October brings its own

Juice tastes like your spit on my lips

It overflows, slides down the point of my chin--

I can see the dirt, the darker spots

It smells like my backyard, like orange blossoms in the spring time

I am afraid.

It is a pale thing, 

for a dark body.

There are little particles 

of dried skin on my 

elbows and hips and knees

that are so white

he could only ever know