20

The true, not the calendar November
has arrived. I float beneath gray clouds
the color of brain, or imminent rain
& scrabble snoozing screed beside the river's
stolid girdle. Megaphones explain
(across bank troughs & boring crowds)
the blaring's sponsored (by somebody or other).

Only these vacant, granite spaces bother
to remember the cost of all that labor,
& it's shrinking Grandma under her arbor
hard by Grandpa in the ground
comprende better than any still around
how Adam plowing in the fado dust
taught them to fade, as each we must.

---

Henry Gould | Island Road 21
Contents | Mudlark No. 6