A living skin, a skein of green briars
where a half-hinged door is wagged by the wind
Good-natured god, decay’s stigmata-stained spires
nettles paint the stairs splotch patterned, olive skinned
Glass window shards grab a slip of silk curtain
pick-pocket beetles engrave brute luck broadside
Chimney thrushes cabined in ash are certain
cynicism’s growing sums are rectified
Blue jays opine time’s cuckoo clock mocking
worms ply enormous copses, scrawl casts of clay
Autumn gusts and rains whirl detritus stocking
flung colors Pollocked, clutter’s chaos array
Hours dissolve the acorns and soft seeds scatter
as grasses grown tall have turned light yellow
architecture’s flourishes are picked off
crumbled valuables filched and turned to dirt
tumult’s passages dug the driveway’s trough
carrion feeders pull black quills from their shirt
slugs smear a rainbow trail and mice scurry
collapsed walls fall to the slush of leaf slurry
©marywinslow2017
