* * *

poetry festival someone says the lake isn’t a lake

in wild– flower beds now only the cosmos

200 years after Keats’ ode autumn persists

churchyard labyrinth zeroing in on the X

where the dead are said to sleep my autumn face

skyline the immensity of our loss

wet sidewalk beneath the fallen leaves another sky

London after Blake bearded hipsters open a pop-up brothel

in this human city an ash tree sings possessed by starlings

hunting mushrooms I find a small circus

November rain a mouse forages under the garden table

this slower autumn from which there’s no return cold to my bones

guard dog wagging your tail I’m leaving now

moon at the station imagine belonging to just one place