Fall Arriving

Grey clouds
brush the sky
low and hurried
like a broom sweep.

Sleep is leaden, a dropped corpse.

Leaves verge on blushing.

Air is an impatient mother, barging and sighing through her day.
But is crouched and rustling in the cold slam of darkness.

I keep wearing sandals.

And the crickets chirp to winter, not yet.

Not just yet.

—Allison Dick, Toronto, Canada