Autumn As Carmine On A Collar

AUTUMN AS CARMINE ON A COLLAR

Autumn leaves 

a seasonal mark

—on a T-shirt you gifted me—

and its familiar aroma 

stokes a hunger in me

wide as a field of chrysanthemum.

Even though when I kissed you

I tasted a sapphire flame, do

I miss the floating smoke 

of fiery leaves? No, 

but now a distant train’s 

notes appear to ghost my nose

with unhurried puffs of air

drifting or falling as if being

bent into your cursive scent.

Do these scarlet leaves 

imitate your cardinal lips 

when they tilted my world

by decreeing that

“librarian is the sexiest word”

their shadows mimicking the harmonic 

minor of your winged eyeliner

resolving into a dominant chord?

Is there enough medicine in any pair 

of glasses to sharpen an i pencil’s arc

into a complex sign 

on a falling star chart

where your contralto doesn’t season

every broth into a brothel?

After all, what half blind thing 

—if it dreams—doesn’t 

mostly dream of falling?

Carmine can’t of course

be the only shade of autumn 

leaves that turns me like

handcuff keys towards what 

once surely was

the tips of your fingers 

brushing my bare forearms

—and could’ve still been—

unless your lowered lashes 

& my bent limbs 

prayed to what ache? 

And yet the truth is my nipples

are vestigial, but somehow still

sensitive to rumors

of ruby on fingernails.

Maybe if you hadn’t 

swiped my burgundy hoodie

while pouting & pretending

to hide the lone in cologne,

I might’ve stopped falling

for the one shade of lipstick 

on your private playlist

that raced my heart

like a Little Red Corvette.

In case of emergency—

brake lite/break lights/

break lightly.

Given what was reflected

in your oversized glasses

how could any lens

have foreseen our state bird 

being a cardinal sin?

Now, the collar of memory 

circles me like a bull with horns 

lowered and nose flared

or tries to walk me like a bulldog

as if all the black bulls 

I’ve ever been or was

dogged into being never 

learned release from their rings—

nose or otherwise—

except by confinement.

Ellipses of rimshot & gunshot

& bloodshot eyes.

You likely won’t be back—

all the minor falling leaves 

so little cushion for that—

so why do I keep trying to divine

which chords might

reharm our major lift?

What blush of nested notes

still quickens while autumn leaves 

twist softly as keys in secret 

drawers storing maps

I trace nightly to recall—

tho not as any gospel 

chanted in a church or brothel?

Yet could any cardinal—or even

the jay that begins my name—

infer how much this falling fifth 

of train whistle must lift before 

I once more can leave

a necklace of ruby caresses 

across your collarbone?