I hate autumn...

John Atkinson Grimshow (1836-1893), Autumn, Leeds

not now

I am not entranced with topaz
and amber leaves, nor thrilled
with gusts that reek of swift decline.
You would argue it is me, proclaim
the power of my influence

as if it were season unto itself.
You urge me to translate the world
creaking on its axis as a song,
but what I hear is the lumbering of days
carving deep ruts that will not heal.

Time after time I tilt my face
to the distant sun only to tread
on prickled husks, the brittle
ruins of spent desire. Still I stoop
to prod the awful crush,

taint my palms with tomb’s dust.
Winter paces on the ridge, spreads
frosty fingers against a washrag sky,
eager, as always, to slip them under
my summer skirt. Your old sweater

is speckled with beggar’s lice,
woven with the bleached threads
of every mislaid betrayal.
No, I am not devoted to your bonfires,
your wheels of wheat, the promise

of snow that hovers near your lips.
I pull curtains shut, brace the doors,
lean hard against the smudged hours
that blow like smoke and ash
beneath the splintered threshold .