Autumn Girl

There is a girl,

she draws attention

she sparkles in the sun,

under moonlit nights,

and artificial skies,

The streets move

with her legs

like the eyes of passersby,

men drunken with her image

wage invisible wars on their sanity,

I am a falling leaf

wrapped in the cool air

over a clear crisp pond,

it is mid-October,

a thin layer of ice

clings to its hardened banks,

at the mercy of the wind

I tumble, a solitary leaf

a moment green then

red orange yellow brown

all at once

once green,

and tumbling

tumbling

falling

There is a girl

wrapped in her coat,

hidden from the world,

the October air, victorious

over summers magnanimity,

beats against her figure,

she is walking home,

by a pond,

its icy banks glistening,

by her feet

a leaf,

the scars of

spring summer autumn

dull its color

she reaches down

her soft fingers weightless

over tired brittle skin,

the others look on falling around her

too late-- she places the leaf

in her pocket

the water ripples with

her echo, we are tortured

by her distance,

unreachable

elusive, he clings tightly to her

the envy

of watching eyes

and

passing gazes.