It was on a Tuesday—
empty-handed tree branches cringing beneath the
heaviness of a premature spring wind, and trying (failing) to
sprout fistfuls of leaf-paper poetry—proof to the world (and to themselves)
of something to say.

It was the season of in-between
and she was a letter scrawled by rememberings (and regrets),
unread and tucked into the envelope of an apathetic world. A girl
(a woman) left to linger and to steep in tea cups full of the steaming winter
and of loneliness.

And she walked through leftover
currents of wilted autumn leaves, now crumpled and disposed
onto the floor of a wintery Tuesday like (insufficient) pages, never to
be read. They lifted in the breeze to watch her and without really wanting to,
she understood.

For she was cringing, too,
beneath the (too-bright) light of a February sun that demanded
competence. She searched for it with frantic hands and found only
fistfuls of afraid and pockets full of words collected on heart-floors like
wilted autumn leaves.