Harpur

Swept up in a diagonal
rain of yellow leaves and
gleefully eating my avocado I
find the silverwood bench that 
I often fantasized about stealing


('cept it's bolted firmly to the ground)


I sit there as the sun
places her warm hand on
the back of my neck. Above, cirrus
clouds make sweeping 
gestures like a relative
just returned from overseas. Those
ancient bells stupidly ring out
'the Nutcracker' and 'when the saints 
go marching in' so that I cannot hear
grace above their commanding 
echoes. And I do 
not want to go back to
that stifling room of
orange
and 
brown
where the mean
tomes give me papercuts
because they know 
I do not understand them.