Last Year

I put on sadness like a shroud;
just like Charlie Brown in late October.
Much more solemnity than that.
'Cause after the party it sticks to my skin
to fade like a scar.
And I've been walking down December sidewalks
since spring, watching imagined futures run away
like leashless dogs into streetlight.
Sometimes I reign the dreams in
to hide in my throat, behind my eyelids
like love. Or set them out on display,
flies on a windowsill who sputter and stop—
final breaths too subtle to see.
And that's why it took me three hours
of back and forth underneath slate skies
to notice the gold-auburn leaves.
Standing outside like a monk before a temple,
in a t-shirt with the autumn breeze of soft pins and needles
I could see myself again.