little burn on the leaves, little love declaration; little dull light

Fuck the hot autumns of Charleston, fuck handsome 

 

 

Alabama, fuck the Deep South alcoholics 

 

standing in flannel in the summer sun. I drove north. 

 

 

I took Green Road to Hubbardsville 

 

and saw October in August, booted men hosing grit 

 

 

off the park pool’s bottom, crisp leaves lifted 

 

like the remnants of summer’s collective memory. 

 

 

I drove out or into it listening to the Liverpool Choir’s 

 

mournful version of the national anthem, the tuning forks 

 

 

of eastern townships bringing a Stravinsky more film score 

 

then symphony. I wanted the blaze of the unmuffled 

 

 

trumpet, the spin song of the laundromat, a little of the hurricane’s 

 

Guernican remedy in the streeted leaves, in the blooms 

 

 

of glass from kids breaking fluorescent 

 

light tubes in the spent vocabulary 

 

 

of an asphalt parking lot. I wanted 

 

October: lace trim of a black dress slumped 

 

 

on the floor of my birthday, cold skin 

 

and laughter. Little burn on the leaves, little love 

 

 

declaration; little dull light in the white sky. 

 

[Grady Chambers 'Syracuse, October', from North American Stadiums]

 

[and yep, it's really 'then']