Goddamn this hint of musk. It papers my eyes in polaroids. Drags me by the hair into every dusty corner. Sucking sweet from clover until I’m dried up. A clay man cracking in the oven. Goddamn the burning leaves. Pillow-puff wafts of smoke sneak in through cracked windows. Take my hand, lost boy. Let’s suck the umami autumn into our mouths. Come closer, let me lap it up from your lips while my fingernails tighten into your skull. Goddamn the summer sun. It boils my shoulders into blister-pop red. A layer of skin piling up on the nightstand after a day in the backwoods. The creek kissed the mud from my toes & exposed a leech…feeding. Later, I cried alone on the bathroom floor when I plucked it like a petal. Goddamn its pregnant body & everything stolen from me.