Autumn As Carmine On A Collar

AUTUMN AS CARMINE ON A COLLAR

If autumn leaves a seasonal mark

—on a T-shirt you gifted me—

or darkens my hunger 

into a field of chrysanthemums,

it’s because when we used to kiss

I failed to submit to the sapphire.

Do I now miss the floating harm

of flaming leaves? No, the joints

you rolled were thinner than 

the line between cuddle & curdle

and your cursive scent became

cardamom & clove notes

ghosting my nose—

drifting or twisting into

leaves trailing a distant train.

Do these scarlet leaves 

mimic your cardinal lips 

as they tint my world

by softly insisting 

“librarian is the sexiest word”

or as they shadow 

the harmonic minor of a winged 

eyeliner into a dominant chord?

Is there enough medicine 

in any pair of glasses to correct

an i pencil’s arc across the water 

signs of a falling star chart

towards what still seasons

my broth into a brothel?

After all, what rapid eyed thing 

—if it dreams—doesn’t 

mostly dream of falling?

And carmine can’t of course

be the sole shade of autumn 

leaves turning me like

handcuff keys towards

these memories of the tips

of your fingers brushing 

my bare forearms.

They still might be 

except that her lowered lashes 

& my bent limbs were caught

praying to a blaze orange ache.

And yes, my nipples

are vestigial, but somehow 

always redden to rumors

of ruby on fingernails.

Maybe if you hadn’t 

swiped my burgundy hoodie

while trying to hide

the lone in cologne,

I might’ve stopped falling

for that one shade of lipstick 

on your private playlist

that could hairpin my heart

in a Little Red Corvette.

In case of emergency—

brake lite/break lights/

break glass lightly.

Given what parked sideways

in your oversized glasses

how could any lens

have foreseen our state bird 

being a cardinal sin?

Even if I wear the spiked collar

of a bull with horns lowered 

and nose flared or a bulldog 

being walked through its past 

as if all the black bulls 

I’ve ever been or was

dogged into being somehow

learned release from their rings—

nose or otherwise—

by confinement,

these ellipses of rimshots 

& gunshots & bloodshot eyes

still wouldn’t bring you back.

All the minor falls left

too many wounds for that—

why seek to finger a familiar 

clavicle to find which chords 

might reharm our major lift?

What myth of buried kisses

blooms when autumn leaves 

twist loosely as keys in secret 

drawers storing maps one

paces nightly to reread,

just not in the key of a hymn

played in some church as gospel?

I wish I knew if the wings

of any ordained cardinal—

or even the jay that begins 

my name—could re-feather

into the whistle of a distant train

or fall into a fallow field

where two marooned lips might drift

past these collarbones again?