They’ve bitten and held
through the month of October’s
unseasonable warmth.

Now, they’ve excised on the
first day in November and I
bleed.

The leafless branches of the
bluffs,  show among their
unshed brethren like the
claws of the undead.

The work becomes onerous
despite my ambition;
the cold weather creates
problems unsolvable before
the first ice forms or the first
snowflakes fall to stay.

There is no reward in getting
done what needs done.

Leaving the house before sunrise,
coming home as the last of October’s
auburn hangs in the sky,
knowing soon that November will
leave her bleak blackness in the air,
robbing me of the rose-colored clouds
that decorate the morning commute.

The fangs of September are pulled
for this year, but the rest of these
benumbed months will gnaw
until the warm juncture’s thaw.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2017