AUTUMN AS CARMINE ON A COLLAR
Autumn leaves
a seasonal mark
—on a T-shirt you left me—
and its familiar aroma
stokes a hunger
wide as a field of chrysanthemum.
Even though when I kissed you
I tasted a small flame, do
I miss the floating smoke
of fiery leaves? No,
but now a distant train’s
notes appear to ghost my nose
as unhurried puffs of air rise,
drift or fall as if being bent
into your cursive scent.
Do these scarlet leaves
mimic your cardinal lips
when they seem to decree
“librarian is the sexiest word”
and their shadows mimic the harmonic
minor of your winged eyeliner
darkening 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 like
handcuff keys into what
once might’ve felt
like the tips of your fingers
brushing my bare forearms
—and may still—
until your lowered lashes
& my bent limbs
pray to what ache?
The truth is my nipples
are vestigial, but somehow
still sensitive to rumors
of ruby on fingernails.
Maybe if you had stopped
swiping my burgundy hoodie
while pouting & pretending
to hide the lone in cologne,
I could’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 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.
What shade of blush is this
that quickens to lace its lips
around my face & neck while
autumn leaves turn softly
as keys to hidden drawers
storing maps of touch
I redraw nightly to recall—
tho not as any gospel
chanted in a church or brothel?
You likely won’t be back—
all the minor falling leaves
so little cushion for that—
and yet I still try to divine
which chords might find
a way to reharm our major lift.
But could any cardinal—or even
the jay that begins my name—
infer how long this falling fifth
of train whistle must lift before
it could once more leave
a necklace of ruby caresses
to call my collarbone home?
