From my balcony I can smell the change of seasons
wood smoke and salt and damp leaves,
long-sleeve shirts stale from the bottom drawer
and clouds bunched like sailors to the west
promising whisky and a hornpipe.

who will mourn the hot sun’s scent on plastic
the pallor of long afternoons
bored blind and dull as paint
spattered on old shoes
beside the door

leading to the courtyard
built to watch summers with disinterest
and clay tiles, the perpetual chat
of water in basins with wind in branches
plump with crows.

light the candle from punk
left over from July Fourth,
unstop the bottle of strong water
then scent your neck with the old apples of it
the wise apples and the flat ones

and the pears of autumn red as a nun’s wimple
soft as wet hay
sweet as a kiss in the shade of fruit trees
the sun arching into evening
the insects silent and dead

and your hand
with its long fate and short, tight girdle
its quick Mercury
resting upon mine
as if to say:  here is the work of winter.